


Agent Murdock

by MissIzzy



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Action/Adventure, Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Karen Page, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Catholic Guilt, Gen, Torture, adopted family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-13 20:29:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 58,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7135967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissIzzy/pseuds/MissIzzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Instead of Stick, Matt was found by S.H.I.E.L.D., who recruited him.  Ten years later, on his first mission, when sent to deal with a young minion with permission to kill, like Clint Barton before him, he made a different call.<br/>Then in 2014, things got more complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Filling my own daredevilkink prompt, which I decided to do to cheer myself up after the second season.

He couldn’t keep the noise away anymore.

Matt twisted back and forth on the bed, trying not to keep any of his back in contact with it for too long, keeping his ears covered, even though it didn’t help. He could still hear all of it, the words, the shouts, the screams, the static, the stereo, the systems of the building, which were old and so, so loud. His nose was assaulted by too many smells; he wasn’t sure how he was breathing. His clothes felt like they were rubbing his skin raw.

He thought Sister Agatha was speaking again. He thought she wasn’t in the room; she was walking over floor somewhere. She’d said there was someone to see him…he didn’t know how long ago; he couldn’t keep track of time anymore. “…doctors, clergy, no one has any idea what’s wrong with him. If you’ve heard of anything like this…”

“Confidential, m’am.” The voice was that of an adult, but Matt didn’t think he was that old. “But let me talk to him.”

Their footsteps were loud, maybe coming to him. They were, she was speaking as she opened his door. But the wind was too loud outside, and he couldn’t tell what she was saying. He thought maybe he should sit up or stand up or something, but he couldn’t get it together. More footsteps going away, Sister Agatha wasn’t coming in. Matt wanted to beg her to help again.

And then a broad, strong voice cut through it all with, “Good morning, Mr. Murdock. The nuns tell me you’ve been hearing things, and it’s been getting worse. Can you tell me what you’re hearing right now?”

“Everything!” He’d told the nuns that already. “You her, the others…” He couldn’t figure out any more than that. It was too noisy, too loud.

“Other what?” The man spoke very gently, more than anyone ever had to Matt, maybe. “Other people? Other voices?”

Matt struggled to answer. The man maybe decided to try something else: “Sister Agatha told me you had this problem when you first came here, but it wasn’t as bad. Can you tell me what you were hearing them? The nuns say you claimed you kept hearing the gunshot that killed your father.”

“I wasn’t, I…I didn’t say that…I didn’t say it right.” He wasn’t even sure what he’d said anymore; they must have misunderstood it, anyway. “I only heard it when it happened.”

“Your father was killed some way away from your apartment, wasn’t he?” The nuns had been quick to remind Matt of that, but this man sounded different. Sad, like they’d been, but thoughtful, as if he might actually believe what Matt was saying. “You were in the apartment at the time.”

“I heard it. It woke me up.” He shouldn’t cry. He did sometimes, when the noise and the death and the guilt were all too much, but it was a bad idea, because that just led to more smells and his face being sticky for hours and hours.

An inhale, a speed in thumping that might have been the man’s heart beating quicker, and then, “When I came in here, there were two girls standing outside talking to each other. They were introduced to me as Rose and Jane. Are they still standing there? Can you tell?”

“I don’t…” But then, he knew their voices, and… “I can hear them, I think, Rose just stopped talking and Jane started…” But he couldn’t keep track, everything else was drowning them out. “Wind’s too strong again,” he commented without thinking.

“The nuns talked to me as if you were having auditory hallucinations-that means they think you’re hearing imaginary things.” He sounded kind of awed. “One of them even said your ears are broken. But they’re not, are they? In fact, they’re working all too well.”

He was so relieved someone believed him, Matt blurted out, “It’s not just my ears. I could smell the blood on my dad from a fight long before he came through the door.”

The man’s came up to the bed. “May I take your hand and shake it?” Matt held his hand up in the air; the man’s hand was warm and a little sweaty. “My name is Agent Phil Coulson. I’m part of an organization that deals with a lot of things, including people like you, people who have unusual abilities, like seeing or hearing things other people can’t. Many of those people had the same kind of struggle you’re having right now, but thanks to us they’re now living normal lives. I would like to help you out.”

 

####  **A few months later**

 

Matt was getting to the point where he could identify S.H.I.E.L.D. facilities by their smell; they all tended to use the same type of carpet and often they were cleaned by the same products. The carpet seemed to make a particular sound against his cane too. That in itself, he supposed, wasn’t surprising.

What was more so was how he was drawing all that into his memory right now, on his way to what might well prove his last meeting with Agent Coulson, although he knew that wasn’t likely, even if the man didn’t ask what Matt had suspected from the beginning he was eventually going to ask. He knew what the official purpose of this meeting was; it was time. That he was navigating the corridor so easily, completely undistracted, and no one even seemed worried if he could manage it anymore were all indications of that.

Indeed, when he knocked, heard Coulson call for him to come in, and did so, the first thing the other man said was, “Still using the cane?” After all, everyone here knew about his senses. Or even if they didn’t specifically know, they could guess pretty easily. This was that sort of place.

“It does make things easier,” Matt told him. “Besides, I know I’m supposed to appear to be a normal blind person now. That’s why you called me here, isn’t it? To talk about that?”

“Yes, and no,” said Coulson, and Matt knew he’d guessed right. “Sit down.”

When Matt did, he continued, “We finished all the paperwork this morning, and you officially have the green light to head back into the outside world, and have relatively little to do with us for the rest of your life if you so wish. We will appoint you a supervisor, of course, and they’ll check in with you from time to time, but I suspect you really won’t be bothered too much. You even have a choice where you can go; we can return you to St. Agnes, or we can try to find a foster family for you ourselves, although since I understand you’re going to be in position to resume school along with your peers in September, we should probably have you settled wherever you go in time for that.”

“But that’s not what you want me to do, is it?”

He could hear Coulson’s fingers fidgeting a little as he said, “I want you to understand, Mr. Murdock, whatever decision you make about this right now doesn’t have to be permanent; you can change your mind about it at any time over the next few years, and we’ll be ready to arrange things for you then. In fact, I’m not sure if it wouldn’t be a good idea to go back out into the world now and take this option into consideration when you’re a little older.”

“But you want to recruit me.” Matt kind of understood why Coulson was saying all of this first, but he still felt a little impatient to see the point gotten to. “I mean, why else wouldn’t my supervisor already be appointed and here? Obviously it would be you if I said yes, but if I said no then you’d make it somebody else.”

“You’re smart, Mr. Murdock.” Not really; Matt couldn’t help but think that had been pretty obvious. “That’s one of the reasons that, yes, I would like to eventually see you join S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Eventually? But you want me to start now.”

“A little, yes. Even if you agree to it, you wouldn’t be doing much just yet. Your life right now would still be pretty much normal, at least as much as is practical for a boy of gifts that affect his basic experience of the world as fundamentally as yours do. You’d probably live with the family of one of our agents, or someone friendly to us, someone who would certainly know about your abilities. Your schooling would remain your priority; you’d just have a few more lessons after it along with your homework. You could even go to college before entering one of our academies to train full time, if you wanted. As I said, you could change your mind at any time, and we wouldn’t require you to stop living with your foster family. You wouldn’t even necessarily start right away if you do say yes now. We usually don’t recruit children, Mr. Murdock; we’d very much be playing this by ear, and I want to do this ethically.”

The thing was, it sounded appealing to Matt. These few months around S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, all of them wanting to help him, even when he knew more about them and their organization than they’d wanted him to know, had left him wanting to be one of them. He knew they did good in the world, kept people safe, and to do that was a desire that ran deep within him. Maybe it wasn’t entirely wise of him, but he trusted Phil Coulson, more than he’d ever trusted anyone besides his dad, and he liked him.

“I can guess what your biggest objection is,” he said.

“My father,” Matt admitted readily. “He didn’t want me to fight. I’d have to as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent; I know that.”

“What it sounds like to me he wanted, Mr. Murdock, if for you to have a better and happier life than he did. I’m sure, also, he took heed of your considerable intelligence, and wanted you to make use of that.”

“He did,” said Matt. “Absolutely.” He tried to beat the guilt down as he thought about his father, remember what the psychologist had said to him over it.

What Coulson knew about too, and he said, “You can’t hold yourself responsible for his choices, and you can’t make every one of yours based off what he wanted; at some point you have to think about what you want for your own life. And even if being an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. isn’t quite what he would have wanted for you, I think it’s not that far off. I think with us you could reach your full potential, with your brawn and your brains, and also with your wish to help people-I don’t think you even realize how unusually strong that is within you, Mr. Murdock, and how valuable your feelings there are.

In any case,” he finished, “it’ll be at least another day before we can even begin to make arrangements. You should think about it for a little bit, give me an answer tonight, maybe. Until then, if you have any questions, I’ll keep myself available.”

“Thank you,” Matt said politely, standing up. He would think about it, of course. He wasn’t sure he’d say yes right now; part of him felt like he didn’t want this, not yet. But he was pretty sure that, sooner or later, he would say yes, and after that, he wouldn’t change his mind.

 

####  **Ten Years Later**

 

By the time Coulson arrived at the Academy, they’d finally let Matt go, and he’d gone to settle into his new dorm room. It did feel a little odd, being the only student there at the moment. The other two students who had been taken on the mission had just finished their final year; they and Matt had already said their goodbyes, though he did hope he would see them both again someday, if their paths within S.H.I.E.L.D. happened to cross once again.

Meanwhile, there was his supervisor and his old friend and mentor, because of course he came to see Matt, showing up when he’d put most of his things away and was lying on top of his new sheets, his bare arms against them. He thought certain people in the Sandbox were still too excited about the ongoing project to find high-tech textiles that didn’t irritate his skin. Not that he wasn’t grateful. His first year here at the Academy he’d barely been able to stand being in his uniform; now they’d made him ones he felt blissfully comfortable in.

Agent Coulson’s grin was very easy for him to hear now. “I see you’re testing out Agent Logaard’s latest invention,” he said, as Matt pulled himself up into a sitting position. “Be sure to send the Sandbox some feedback; I think she’s hanging on it.”

“I still think she’d have more important things to do,” Matt commented. It really did stun him how much time they must spend designing these things for him.

“Everyone gets tired of robots and weapons,” said Coulson, sitting down next to him. “She probably works on them whenever she needs a break.” At least he wasn’t trying to preach to Matt about how he deserved to not dread his linens in that over-solicitous way Agents Logaard and Simmons had spoken to him, when he’d submitted to having the latter try to gauge his sensitivity to things in person a month or so ago.

“I want to see how you were holding up,” he continued. “I know it’s always a bit much to deal with, going on a mission for the first time, especially when you’re not even done here yet. Plus I heard about what happened.”

“I…do you really think I was wrong, not to kill the target?” He should say he was sorry, he knew, but he never could be, not for not killing someone.

“Well,” said Coulson, “first of all, Ms. Page wasn’t the target. She was merely one of his minions, and considering her age and history, I would say you were dead right when you argued to Agent Sitwell that she was more another victim of him than anything else. Secondly, whatever others may tell you, the truth is you showed no weakness when you chose to bring her back with you. If anything, you showed strength, being brave enough to do that with someone who you couldn’t even be certain wouldn’t try to kill you. And as I said to you ten years ago, Mr. Murdock, your compassion and value for human life is something far rarer than even your having superpowers. It meant one more person protected on that mission, one more life saved.

And thirdly, I actually have news for you about her: she’s through all the evaluations, and she’s been granted admission into the Academy. She’s got huge gaps of knowledge, of course, and in places where most of our first-year students don’t, but there are also areas where she’s more advanced than them. I met with her briefly just now, and I believe she could be a brilliant S.H.I.E.L.D. agent if all goes well.”

“I’m glad for that,” said Matt, and he meant it. The conversations he’d had with the girl himself had made him think redemption was just what she needed, that she had much good to give to the world.

“You should be,” said Coulson. “You not only saved a life, you gave someone a future when she may not have had much of one otherwise, and you’ve gained S.H.I.E.L.D. an asset, though I think you care about the latter less than the former.”

“You know me,” grinned Matt. “Though I’m happy for S.H.I.E.L.D. too. After all, they gave me my life back too, ten years ago.” He did sometimes think, looking back on Coulson’s actions then, that perhaps his intentions had not been quite so noble as some might have liked. But the news and praise both had made his heart light with relief and joy, the balm he’d needed after Agent Sitwell’s upbraiding, and today he was willing to only be grateful for it all.

Though even so, when Coulson spoke again, Matt could hear clear concern in his voice. “Agent Sitwell is not a bad man, you know,” he said. “But then, I think you know that already, and that his words trouble you more because of it.”

“I know it already,” Matt confirmed. “I know why he saw it the way he did. I did feel a little worried about it, too. Not about risking my own life, I was willing to do that for a chance at saving hers. But I did put him and my two classmates at risk too. I understand that.” He hadn’t asked either of them for their opinion on his actions. He’d been afraid of them volunteering it and trying to lie to him; he wasn’t sure either of them had quite realized he’d be able to tell, or whether either of them weren’t the kind of special operative who had trained so that he wouldn’t be able to anyway. He'd also been afraid of their true opinions even more.

But Coulson’s was, “If your two classmates have learned their lessons, including the ones the events of these past couple of weeks have taught them, they will know those are exactly the risks they will spend their lives taking for the sake of others. They shouldn’t view it as any different as stepping into the line of fire to protect a civilian bystander, or, for that matter, a prisoner under their protection. Of course, those of us who supervise, like Agent Sitwell, will feel a good amount of worry for the subordinates they’re responsible for. I admit, it is a lot harder for us to remember to keep a balance between protecting our people and doing the right thing. Something for you to worry about someday, perhaps.”

“You think I might go that far?” asked Matt. That wasn’t actually the career he currently planned for himself. “You know what electives I’m taking.”

“The legal ones, yes.” Legal ones which gave him credits other schools would recognize. He did things right, he could have his Bachelor’s well before he turned thirty. When he was young he had wanted to be a lawyer, and he had never given that dream up entirely. When he was too old or too injured to work as a specialist anymore, S.H.I.E.L.D. had need of lawyers, and they might even pay for law school. “And if that’s how you go, I’m sure we’ll all be glad for it. But if there’s one thing my experience as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. has taught me, it’s that life never goes as you think it will. Neither of us have any idea where we’ll be in ten more years’ time, Mr. Murdock. Maybe all will go according to plan, maybe nothing will. Be sure you prepare for both eventualities.”

“Thanks for the advice,” said Matt. “I’ll be sure to keep it in mind.”

“Good. Because if there’s one thing I’m certain of, Mr. Murdock, especially after hearing about how this first mission of yours went? It’s that you are going to have a very interesting career indeed.”


	2. The Fall of S.H.I.E.L.D.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Struggling to survive the day their world imploded.

**April 2014**

 

By the time Matt reached the great lobby, it was clear the great ships above were going to hit the building; no matter what the people in it did the Triskelion’s fate was already sealed. A lot of the people around sounded like they’d realized that and were just fleeing, deciding to worry about who around them were friends and who around them were foes when there was nothing else about to kill them. But too many hadn’t; there were people fighting everywhere. If he was to get out, he’d have to battle his way across the room.

And then, not far from him, he heard one heartbeat he’d never fail to recognize, and he zeroed in until he could hear her moving, her limbs moving through the air as she punched one man and got another in the groin, her ponytail swishing about her, even her breathing too fast; she’d been fighting too long. “Karen!” he called, just loud enough for her to hear, he hoped.

“Matt.” She murmured it under her breath, for his ears only. “I’ve got two. There’s a third somewhere in this crowd; don’t know if he’ll try to get back over here.”

Then a rough voice, too near her, “Who you think you’re talking to, bitch?” They both had their hands on her; he heard her foot land on one of theirs and a grunt of pain, bodies moving. He couldn’t get a complete read; there were too many people in the way. He started shoving them aside, uncaring as to whether they were S.H.I.E.L.D. or Hydra. He couldn’t really know anyway. Not in this chaos and everyone’s hearts going crazy and too many agents being able to control their responses. There was only one person here he knew he’d always be able to read and he was determine to trust, and they were getting out of here together or not at all.

She was trying to make her way to him, too, and he heard a satisfying thud near her; she’d knocked out one of her opponents. But the other chuckled darkly, and said, “Oh, honey, too late, see, Trucky’s got the gun!”

There were a lot of guns in the lobby. Some of them were firing, which at least meant they probably weren’t Trucky’s. But when Matt listened, he noticed one gun was being cocked and wielded by someone coming directly at Karen and her remaining opponent. Jumping over a pair of people tussling on the floor, he threw himself directly at the man.

Trucky hadn’t seen him coming, but he was quick. Matt failed to get his hands on the gun; it instead went flying into the air. He heard the scramble of feet and was left confident Karen would be the one to catch it; the other guy’s attempts to keep a hold on her weren’t going to succeed; he was too overconfident.

She was also going to shoot to kill for sure. He’d hoped to get out of the Triskelion without killing anyone. Now, he spared as much mental energy as he dared to pray for forgiveness for what they were going to have to do to survive the next hour.

He had barely heard her small hands close in on the gun when the first shot rung out, and Trucky was dead. But there wasn’t time to think about that; a moment later their last remaining foe had grabbed her wrist and she was struggling to keep hold of her weapon. Matt tried to get to her, but suddenly there were a knot of people between them, all fighting each other. And then behind him, he heard someone murmur, “Matt Murdock,” in a malicious tone, and he turned around in time to respond to the oncoming blow with one of this own, but he could offer Karen no more help.

The man was about his height, maybe a little bulkier. No injuries besides bruises and some possibly strained muscles, but he was fatigued, more than Matt was. He was able to duck just a little faster, get punches to the man’s back before he could both realize and respond. Before he could recover, Matt had punched his legs out, hard enough he heard a bone crack, and he could feel the devil rising, appetite whetted, and he aimed a kick to the small of the man’s back, loving his cry of pain.

But a moment later someone had grabbed his arm. Female, tall, very strong, her fingers especially. Meanwhile the man above him wasn’t done yet, and before Matt could shake her off, the two of them together were both holding him down, and he heard the woman pull out a knife. The man chuckled. Matt’s legs flailed.

Karen was there. He realized it a second before something metal heavy and creaky hit the man and sent him barreling into the woman. Then the only person above him was Karen, dropping the too-heavy object right on top of both of their foes. She was wounded in the side, but it wasn’t bleeding too much. “Come on!” she yelled as she pulled Matt to his feet.

The lobby was emptier now, but the ships were very close. “We need a quicker way out of this building or it won’t be Hydra who kills us,” he whispered to her. “If you’ve got your rope on you, I think we should to go for the office windows.” Near them was an open door, leading to a currently empty office with an open window; he could feel the air of it right on him. He listened to her bones, and then said, “You still don’t have anything broken, I think.”

He heard her turn her head towards the window. “If there were just a few people fewer between us and it…”

Matt tried to take stock. He was thinking it was nine heartbeats when he heard another firearm cock and pulled himself and Karen down in just a nick of time. “Maybe we should crawl?” he suggested. There was the sound of another body hitting the floor right after too loud a crack, as the number of heartbeats went down to eight.

Another figure reached them as they rose. They both kicked simultaneously and sent him flying into the eight people between them and the window. “Run for it!” Matt barked at Karen, dropping her hand, and thankfully she didn’t argue, but started to run.

Quick whispers between their assailant and five of the people he had collided into, three male and two female, clarified for Matt who was S.H.I.E.L.D. and who was Hydra. The darkest parts of him took him off with a feeling of giddiness as he leapt onto them.

They hadn’t anticipated it at all. Before any of them could land a single blow he’d already taken one of the women down with a kick to the head, gotten his other boot into the ribs of one of the men, and even gotten hold of someone’s shoulder and yanked, causing them to yell in pain. The man he hadn’t hit had a metal baton of some sort; it made contact with Matt’s jaw, knocking him back and possibly knocking some teeth loose, and then the woman he hadn’t hit nearly got him with a much longer one. The other four recovered too fast; their previous opponents were lost in the sea of people still battling, and all six surrounded him. Matt grinned.

He managed to take two of them down before they really started fighting their hardest. “What they hell are you?” He heard one voice demand. His answer was to grab the man’s neck and squeeze; he let go before he more than bruised him, but he staggered back, and promptly just hit by a pair of people engaged in another fight. With three left it became easier. He hit so hard his arms nearly swung off, breaking a few more bones, feeling that more than the blows that went to his own. At some point he realized there was blood on his face, but he could worry about it later; hopefully he was bad enough a sight for it to have an effect on these people. He managed to get kicks in on their shins; their pain was good enough to drink.

Things became a blur, even a wild searing pain in his chest that might have been a rib breaking was only a brief burst as Matt let the devil flow through him, claim the blood it craved, until he was down to only one opponent, the woman he hadn’t knocked out, and they were both staggering a little. But then he heard something metal careen through the air, at the wrong angle for him to make a grab at it, and now it was one of Hydra who had caught a gun thrown at her. Even though her first bullet went only to where he had been the moment before, the second grazed his arm, and she would have killed with the third, he was sure, if her pulling the trigger hadn’t suddenly caused more than a click. It was an ammunition gun that had probably been fired a good deal already that day; she might be out of bullets. With a growl of frustration she launched herself at him.

Karen’s fist met her face as she grabbed Matt’s good arm and pulled at him. “Enough of this, come on!” She gave one last kick to their opponent’s ankle to keep her out before she’d gotten the door shut; it wouldn’t hold forever, but it would hold long enough.

Matt pulled himself back to humanity as he staggered in her wake. “Remember who you are,” Phil Coulson had said to him, when he’d been eighteen and first coming to grips with the devil within him. Poor Phil Coulson, dead nearly two years now, and for the first time Matt was glad of that, that he’d been spared having to experience this day. “We’ve all of us got a dark streak in us, and you’ve got more anger than usually, understandably, but we don’t have to let that define us.” He let his late mentor’s words guide his breathing, and he could feel himself calming slightly before the force of the air on his face told him they’d reached the window. Karen’s rope was in place, though it was blowing about a bit more than they would’ve liked.

“Pavement right below us is clear,” she told him, leaning out of it. “There are police cars, though; impossible to tell who the people in them will be affiliated with…relatively few of them; even if they’re all Hydra, our chances will still be better….especially with those things…we’re not going to be all the way down before they hit; we’ll have to be both fast and ready to brace ourselves.”

“I can track those things; I’ll give you warning,” said Matt, as she climbed out the window and began her descent, him following.

The Triskelion wasn’t exactly the most ideal building to rappel down; the walls were smooth and slippery and provided almost no traction. It could be worse, though; Matt was pretty sure no one at the moment was trying to shoot at them, as they made their way down, hand, under hand, under hand, under hand.

It was a precious few minutes, and they got maybe about halfway down, when Matt heard what he’d known would come and yelled, “Brace for impact!” Not that it mattered much; there was nothing to hold onto but the rope at the first of the great carriers slammed into the building.

They held on through that first crash, Matt’s universe narrowing down to the burn of the rope beneath his hands and the pounding of Karen’s heart below, fast as a quinjet but staying where in the air it was. But it was barely a second before the second hit, then the third. In the third crash he heard what he had been dreading-the sound of steel in the wrong place in the Triskelion’s structural support being hit. “Fast as you can!” he called, though he didn’t even know if she could hear him over the ear-splitting din. He could still hear her heart, though, her breathing almost regimented, the whole thing descending inch by inch…

But he himself had barely gotten a few more meters downward before he heard the roar and rush of the wall collapsing above them, a moment before the rope became a loose, unmoored thing in his hands. Matt had only time enough to think, _Lord, into Your hands I commend my spirit, please have mercy also on her_ before the ground came rushing up to them.

He crashed down to the pavement on his hip; the pain of it instantly blazed up his back and down his leg; it was agony from neck to toes. But it wasn’t life-threatening, and he heard Karen clamber to her feet, albeit with multiple noises of pain and murmurs in her bones that bespoke of them being damaged; they’d gotten down far enough to survive the fall.

He should not stand up, his body told him. He forced himself to anyway. He wasn’t sure he could walk, but he knew he might have to run. The pain was bad enough it was impossible to hide; it was all he could do to keep himself from doing worse than a low groan as they were approached by two cops. “Who are you?” he demanded, forcing his eyes open so they could see he was blind; he could get away with more that way. “What are you doing here?”

“Police,” said one of the two men. “Here to see what the ruckus is about.” Steady heartbeats from both of them. “Don’t suppose you know, sir, m’am?”

They knew, yes. Captain America had explained it to them and to everyone else who hadn’t been Hydra. But how on Earth to explain to these two men, to whom Hydra was just a minor name in a history book, when his ability to think was limited by excruciating pain and the still present shock of the organization they’d dedicated their lives to literally being destroyed around them?

Before either he or Karen could get together an answer, he heard, a little ways away, the sound of a gun being cocked.

“Down!” he yelled, and grabbed one of the two cops and had them both down on the ground before he could react, just before the first shot was fired. Karen too had jumped down and pushed the other cop with her. “What the hell is Coombs doing?” he heard that cop ask.

“He’s probably a Hydra agent!” Karen yelled in answer. “Of course they’ve got moles among the cops! You’d better return fire, sirs, I don’t know if he’ll be satisfied just killing the two of us!”

But one of Coombs fellow officers had decided to stop him; Matt heard the sound of him grabbing him and the wrestling match that ensued.

But then he heard, further away, a voice talking into a communicator. “Hurry up, the agents are coming out of the building and we’re not going to be able to shut them all up. At least get the Connellys crossed off.”

“THE CONNELLYS!” In his panic Matt yelled it. “I just heard him say it-the one with the phone!”

“They’re going after your family?!” Karen cried, horrified. “But you father’s retired!”

“What?!” The cops got to their feet, yanking Matt and Karen up with them. They were safe for the moment, he heard yells as the man on the phone was also identified, and then more sounds of fighting, and Coombs was now subdued and was being handcuffed. “What’s going on? What the hell is Hydra?”

“People who are trying to murder my family! Please, you need to get someone to 1205 Kenyon Street Northwest! NOW!”

“Wait a minute.” The other cop. “By Hydra, you don’t mean…”

“The Nazi organization, yes.” Karen. “Not as destroyed as we thought, I’m afraid. Please sir, they really will kill his family. Us, too, if they can.”

A few seconds silence; Matt thought they might just convince them. Then the sound of multiple motorcycles coming up the road, slowing down to pull up to them, and even before he heard anything from the riders besides their heartbeats, he somehow just knew they were bad news. His three sighted companions seemed to agree too; he recognized that apprehensive inhale of Karen’s, and one of the cops muttered to the other, “Don’t like the look of those at all.”

Sure enough, a moment later guns were drawn, from all of them; a shootout would almost certainly have casualties on both sides. Matt took stock of the men as best he could, gauging them as they stepped off their bikes, then jerked his head towards Karen. Thankfully she understood the message, leaning in to whisper to the cop nearer to her, “If they want to take us alive, we’d appreciate it if you handed us over.”

Before he could respond, one of the men, likely their leader, said, “We got no argument with you, officers. We just want the blind man and the blonde. You should know, the blind man ain’t what he seems. He’s got superpowers. You try to take him with you, you’ll end up with a dead man or two. And the blonde, she ain’t no innocent flower. She used to work for the Goldsmith, up in Vermont. S.H.I.E.L.D. took her in because she looked young and pretty and pathetic, but she’s got the blood of at least five people on her hands, and possibly that of her own brother.” Matt reminded himself to corral his rage at that last accusation. He couldn’t afford it right now. “You really going to get yourselves all killed for that?”

“You shouldn’t, sir,” said Karen in her most earnest voice. “All those guns and I don’t think they’ll stop at killing us if we don’t go quietly.” And she actually pulled away, wrestling out of the grip of a cop who had not been prepared for any trouble from her. Matt didn’t move to join her yet; from the angle she was walking at, he was pretty sure she’d seen the bike at the end that still had its keys in the ignition. She moved fast enough, she’d probably only have to fight half the gang. That she could handle, even injured.

“Well, ain’t that noble.” The leader of the group stepped forward and grabbed her roughly, both wrists in one grip. Her grunt of pain wasn’t feigned. Matt’s fists clenched, even though it made his arm and back feel even worse. She had it, he reminded himself. “Hey, why are you trying to get away now, you bitch?” She wasn’t, of course, she was just getting them to swerve to the side as they returned to his men. “Get her buddy,” he ordered one of his men. Matt leaned forward and made a show of looking passive.

The two of them turned on their captors at the same moment, starting with a stomp and a punch, and Matt continued to hit even as he body screamed in protest, and it really was a good thing he had only one foe plus a pair of cops to dodge. Karen meanwhile was slicing the air, hands and feet all finding new targets with each passing second. Half a minute later, with unconscious or groaning bodies all around her, she was climbing onto the right motorcycle. One more man tried to stop her; she toppled him with a simple move of her leg. She drove it towards Matt, and though for a moment when he commanded his body to move he feared the part of it that felt like it was covered in embers would refuse, it went up into the air, and he easily vaulted onto the seat behind her.

The cops yelled their protest, and two of the gang members got shots off, but they were wild, panicky ones that missed by a mile, and then they were turned and he could tell they’d gotten around a corner. It was surreal for the normally crowded DC streets to be empty, but current events had gone on long enough for them to be, save for the occasional police car. “This traffic holds for enough blocks and we can get to your family in ten,” she said to him, as behind them the rumble of the Triskelion started getting louder, but they’d be more than far enough away when the building finally collapsed completely.

They were flying down the pavement by 11th Street, scattering pedestrians whom Karen swerved like mad to avoid hitting, when it finally did, far away enough it was almost another noise, even if it was one loud enough the entire National Capital Region probably heard it. But the smell carried on the wind; the final crash was still happening when the stink of it reached Matt’s nose, complete with the same carpet and cleaning product, just in case he might have denied it to himself. A noise choked itself in Karen’s throat. “Don’t look back, Karen,” he whispered to her. “Don’t look back.”

A final turn right, and Karen yelled, “Shit, there’s a car in front of the house!” confirming what Matt’s ears had already told him. But he could hear the voices in it, even before Karen said, “I think there are two guys in there; can you figure out what they’re doing?”

Matt tuned into their words, and, “They just got here. Come on!” He took a quick listen into the house, too. None of his foster siblings were there, at least, but not only were both his foster parents, but so were Mariah’s kids. God, just the thought…

Karen took the speed of the bike to what Matt was sure was the fastest it could go, but they were still too far away; two Hydra agents were out of the car and running to the door, and Matt heard the whir and whoosh of a grenade being thrown a moment before it exploded. The screams of the children filled his ears first, followed by his mom’s, “Geoff! Geoff!” and her husband’s, “Get the children and get them out of here, Mandy! There are only two of them; I can hold them off!”

At least he didn’t go straight out to them, a moment after they entered the house, Matt heard him call to them, “Yoo hoo! Hydra! Over here!” There were angry yells from the two men, and then the welcome rush of air and friction as Karen finally reached the house, slamming the motorbike into the car hard enough to dent the trunk a bit. Neither even waited for it to come to a complete stop before they were off it and running up the walk. Matt could hear his mother talking to the children, getting them to come with her, the four of them stumbling down towards the back door. His dad was clearly headed for the safe with his gun in it, but it was too far away; they’d have too much time to fire shots at him.

“Grab something, anything,” Karen murmured as she barreled through the smoking remains of the front door in front of them. He heard a familiar jangle; the wind chimes had managed to survive. He grabbed them. He heard Karen grab the umbrella his mom always kept by the door. Of course she did; she liked umbrellas. Not an ideal situation, bringing them to a gunfight, but they’d won days with larger odds.

It also helped when he heard the back door slam; the five of them were now alone in the house.

It would do his dad good to hear so, too, so he called, “They’re safe!” while he wound the chimes up, before hurling them with all his might through the open door to the living room. They hit their target, hard enough Matt though he heard a bone crack, and one of the two men collapsed. The other fired his gun at Matt’s dad, but he had ducked behind the coffee table and the bullet landed in the couch instead. He and Karen both ran into the living room and a moment later she had landed her first blow with the umbrella. Matt leapt on the man from behind and grabbed his wrist, trying to force the gun from his grip.

He was big and too strong; wildly the two of them tottered about, the gun firing twice more into the ceiling. Karen whacked him in the front with the umbrella, but it didn’t take him down. On the other side of the room, he heard the safe being unlocked, of ammunition being hastily loaded.

Then he heard footsteps outside, and not those of those who had fled the house; there were new ones. “Karen, get outside!” he yelled. “The rest of the family’s fled out the back, and they’re not safe out there!”

“So you do have supersenses,” sneered his opponent. “S.H.I.E.L.D. kept you hidden from the world, didn’t they?”

“Stop all this,” ordered his father, gun now pointed at them. “Get your friends and get out, and I’ll let you live.” Matt paused.

Then the man took advantage, got his arm down and fired.

Matt knew it was fatal before the bullet had even exited his father’s body.

The rage he’d tried to beat down crashed through his brain, and Matt let the devil out.

The man was strong, but the devil was stronger. Within a minute he had him down, at least two bones in his arm broken, and was hitting him for all he was worth, spurred on by his cries of pain. He was just about unconscious when the second man stirred; Matt abandoned him and set in on that man, hitting and hitting until he pulled his arm a little too far, and the pain, masked by adrenaline from about the time they’d turned onto Kenyon Street, came back bad enough he felt dizzy, the world around him spun, and for several minutes he just knelt there, hunched over a pair of bloodied Hydra agents whose hearts nonetheless still beat, and another body from which no heartbeat came; he wasn’t even sure when it had stopped.

He was vaguely aware of the voices coming from the backyard, Karen speaking into the phone calmly; she’d probably called 911. He heard Mariah’s oldest, Juliana, ask nervously, “Is he dead, _maimeo_?” Obviously she’d dealt with the third Hydra agent, and he could hear six heartbeats out there.

“No, dear, he’s not dead,” said his mother. “He’s just unconscious.” Oh dear God, when she walked back in here and found out…

When he tried to get to his feet he found he couldn’t. The adrenaline was wearing off, and the pain was overwhelming. Matt wasn’t sure it was more physical pain or sheer grief that came out of his in the form of loud, heaving sobs that wracked his body further, breaking like he was dying, because he couldn’t stand this, he couldn’t…

_It’s your fault,_ a little voice whispered to him. _Again. They had no reason to go after a retired agent, unless he had something unusual. And he had you for a foster son, still close with him. It must have been because of that. You were a silly kid who wanted to join S.H.I.E.L.D. and you came into this family so you could and you got another father to kill._

He shifted over the unconscious Hydra agent, and shuffled the rest of the way across the room; even that was excruciating, but he needed to get to him, even though he knew already; besides the lack of heartbeat, the lack of heat coming from his body also screamed the fact at him.

For the second time in his life, Matt Murdock knelt before the body of his murdered father.

Once again he placed his hands on a familiar face, clear of blood this time, but equally cold. He remembered when he’d first done this, had gone through each of his new family when he’d been introduced to them, the chuckle that had come from the man. “Dad…daddy…” he stammered. “Please forgive me, oh please, daddy…”

They found him there, Karen and his mother and Mariah’s children; he heard a soul-shattering cry from the second, and Juliana, voice and body both trembling, say, “All powerful and merciful God, we commend to you my grandfather, you servant. In your mercy and love…”


	3. The Dealing with of Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt and Karen are interviewed by Talbot, and find out a secret.

Matt had once read a story about a woman who had spoken at her father’s funeral after the police had already asked to talk to her, and after the ceremony her brother had driven her to the station, not really knowing what they wanted her for, even as he and his wife had waited for her in the lobby, until someone had come out to break the news to them that his sister had been arrested for their father’s murder. It was a few hours after the funeral of the second man he had called his father, whom he had praised for taking him in, and he and Karen had been brought before Colonel Talbot himself. “I have not settled it,” he was saying to them, “that neither of you are Hydra.”

Matt kept his face as neutral as possible as he said, “Colonel Talbot, if you have read my Index profile, you are no doubt aware I can tell when you’re lying.” Maybe he thought Matt was thrown enough by the number of high-strength painkillers he was still on. He wasn’t entirely wrong there, but Matt was nonetheless completely lucid, and also, Glenn Talbot was a man who might have taught himself to lie very well, but his heart would always be awful at it.

“So you’ve told my people already,” said the Colonel. “I’ve also read you’ve learned more than enough about the law to know that polygraphs are not court admissible, and I think your ears count as one for purposes of what has legal weight.”

“Well, what can we say to you anyway?” sighed Karen. “I can’t even understand why you would think we were Hydra in the first place. Why would we have turned on the organization that saved us both?”

Matt wondered if Talbot realized he could hear his eyes narrow. “Agent Page, I think anyone who knows your story could point out that if a different Agent had confronted you that day, you’d be one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s casualties instead of one of its agents.”

“But I wasn’t,” said Karen, a response she’d given to people who’d said that to her before.

“That doesn’t mean you necessarily forgot that. Didn’t maybe come to resent it? Thought S.H.I.E.L.D. was using you, wondered what would’ve happened to you if maybe you hadn’t proved so useful to them? You did more than enough when you were eighteen and nineteen that they could’ve brought you up on legal charges any time they wanted to, and I’m sure they made you aware of that some time in your life. We still could, theoretically, though I don’t think anyone plans to right now.” Steady heartbeat there, thankfully. “Can I be sure that never made you resentful?”

“If she had,” Matt pointed out, keeping his voice steady, hoping Karen wouldn’t insist on yelling at the man, “do you think she would have saved the family of one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s older and by-the-book alumni?”

“Well, I know you two are close, Agent Murdock. I could see a Hydra agent with slightly torn feelings deciding she doesn’t want her allies to kill the family of a close friend, and thinking maybe stopping them from doing so would make it easy for her to fool people.” The smirk was in his voice, as if he believed them to be more than just close friends. Or maybe just that they’d had sex. Which they had done, on and off since their Academy days, but that was common enough among S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, especially ones like them that hadn’t mixed much with the outside world. Talbot had probably interrogated enough agents by now that he may well have known that was one regulation honored very much in the breach.

But that wasn’t a conversation Matt at all felt like having with this man, and he was pretty sure Karen felt the same, so he cut the whole thing off with, “But I can tell perfectly well you don’t think that at all, sir, so this discussion is fairly pointless.”

“Oh really? Why do you think I would waste time, then, Agent Murdock? Do you realize how many S.H.I.E.L.D. agents we’ve had to talk to, and most of them we’re not having meet with anyone who has less than a Top Secret clearance? What do you think I’d be doing here if I was ready to clear your two and get you out of my hair?”

“Trying to intimidate us into giving you information we might not otherwise, of course,” said Matt, and when he heard Talbot’s breathing, he knew he’d guessed right. “For the record, by now you probably know more about who those men on the motorcycles were than we do. We had no idea who they were and we haven’t really felt any urge to find out so far.”

Talbot had recovered enough to chuckle, “I know you had plans for your life that involved law school, Agent Murdock; I suppose you’ll do well there.” But then his voice turned rough again, as he said, “If you get the opportunity to now, of course. And all right, I’ll cut to the chase. I want to know about Phil Coulson.”

Karen let out a shocked laugh. “Phil Coulson?! Colonel Talbot, surely you know he’s dead. That’s not even classified; you can go down to the cemetery here in DC and see his grave. Matt and I have visited it, and so have the Connellys.”

There was a pause, something odd, Matt couldn’t quite put his finger on what. Then he said, “You two were Level 6.”

“That is correct,” said Matt, then, after giving it some thought, said, “and yes, that means we know how Agent Coulson was killed, but believe me, the chances of *that* having anything to do with Hydra are pretty low. I’m surprised noone’s told you already.”

Just then there was a knock on the door, and when Talbot called for them to come in, a military woman came in and said, “Maria Hill just contacted us, sir. She wants to talk to you.”

Matt was glad for that for more than one reason. With Director Fury dead she was probably the best authority the organization had left, and he trusted her to judge how much Talbot and the US government should be allowed to take authority and what, perhaps, should not be put into their hands just yet. Besides, Talbot definitely wouldn’t have any more time to waste of the two of them now.

Sure enough, Talbot stood up and said, “Tell here I’m headed for my office here; I’ll take the call there. On the proper line, of course. Your lucky day, Agents Murdock, Page; you’re free to go for tonight. The reminder not to leave DC until further notice stands.”

“Trust me, Colonel Talbot, I don’t think I’m going anywhere just yet,” grunted Matt as Karen helped him to his feet, taking both his old permanent and new temporary canes in his hands and leaning into both her and his brace. Even with their support his walk was ginger. He was lucky, the doctor had told him, that he wouldn’t need the brace for the rest of his life.

It seemed an unspoken agreement between him and Karen that neither of them were going to make any final decisions on what they were going to do with the rest of their lives until he was fully recovered; he wouldn’t have left DC anyway. Also that they were probably going to stick together, if they could find a plan to do so which worked for both of them. She didn’t have much left besides him, after all. And he didn’t have much more.

Although he did, at least, have other people besides her whom he called family, two of them who were waiting for him outside. He could hear his poor mother clutching her coat tightly around herself against the night’s chill. In front of her, Jessie, the youngest of his siblings, paced back and forth, phone out but not doing much on it. She hurried over when she saw the two of them come out of the building, her dress from the funeral rustling around her. “Anything new?” she asked.

“We’ve actually got them convinced, and they’ve even mostly conceded that out loud,” Matt told her. “They might not even summon us back here again, They’ll definitely at least leave us and hope we think they might for at least another week or two, but still, I’m hoping they won’t.”

 

####  **That Night**

 

Matt had nominally gotten his own place when he’d been posted in the Triskelion, but he had already been spending more of his free hours than not under the roof of his foster parents, and since that fateful day their world had fallen apart he and Karen both had barely been back to their rented flats, and almost every night they’d both slept in Matt’s childhood bed. His mother had been very matter of fact about letting them; the adolescent versions of her children would’ve been stunned. Although she’d probably realized they weren’t doing more than literally sleeping together at the moment.

Also Karen been helping him get ready for bed, but that at least he was now able to do on his own again, even if he couldn’t keep the grimace off his face when he bent down to get his socks off, and ultimately crawled between the old silk sheets naked because putting anything on meant more pain. He listened to Karen put a nightgown on-one of her own silk ones, which she’d been continually wearing, since they liked to sleep with her leaning against him, and then welcomed her into his embrace. He did his best to tune everything else out, the sound of his mother talking to Fox on the phone and the smell of the cleaning products from when Jessie had attempted to distract herself by cleaning the house and vibrations when a particularly heavy truck drove past outside. There was just the familiar smell of the room and linens that had become his home after he’d thought he’d never have one again, and the warmth and heart and breathe of a woman he had loved for years, deeply and easily and with no need for further definitions of what was between them.

Except then, softly, almost into his bare skin, she said, “I still don’t know what I’m going to do with myself now. I mean, at all. But I don’t think I want to live here in DC. Too much…”

“I know,” said Matt. He should’ve expected it, he supposed; the funeral had been a crossing point. “I do need to stay though, and maybe for longer than we get held here or I get out of this brace. At least until I know…I know that my mom’s going to be all right.”

“That’s fine.” She pressed her head into his chest so he could easily feel her nod. “I’ve got just a little work to do myself…I actually exchanged some emails with Agent Zamir. She wants to set up a fund for the Parkinsons’ children. I might need to still be here for at least a few weeks to help her with that.”

They’d attended the funeral for David and Irina Parkinson two days ago, him as her companion. Most of the funerals they’d been to or planned to attend, of which there were plenty, were ones she’d wanted to go to; she’d made friends at S.H.I.E.L.D. the way he hadn’t quite. It wasn’t that anyone had disliked him, or even been afraid of him, but still, being gifted had set him apart from that, in a way neither he nor most of his companions had been able to get past. He was lucky, he supposed, that Karen would always refuse to care about that, and would knock down barriers and shove past roadblocks she didn’t care for with extreme prejudice.

“I have been thinking,” he said, after a pause. “I’ve been thinking about Hell’s Kitchen, you know, ever since the Battle of New York. Been reading, too. The reconstruction hasn’t been too kind to my old neighborhood, I’m afraid. Crime’s way up, almost to what it was when I was a kid, and rumor has it that’s not just of the petty sort either, but that corporate corruption is making the locals suffer.”

“One would hope that would be stopped before you could finish law school,” said Karen. “But if you want to go back there anyway, I’m game.”

“You wouldn’t mind New York? Although maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you anyway. There are plenty of new purposes to find there. A few schools, too; you could go back too, if you don’t want to base your new career in your current skillset. You’ve got some money, right?”

“Not as much as you, but yeah.” Matt did have a lot of money. The Connellys had always refused to touch his inheritance, even when they’d bought him the more expensive things, such as the sheets they lay in, to help him live with his enhanced senses. He had paid for the courses with which he’d completed his Bachelor’s, but much of that had been done at the Academy. Plus he had lived in various S.H.I.E.L.D. outposts and mobile commands for a good deal of his career, during which a lot of his salary had gone unspent. Karen had done the same.

“Good, then,” she said, and she sounded very relieved, and yet her heart was beating too fast. Was it the other thing, the one they were still dancing around, about what their relationship was going to turn into now?

Neither of them had ever been a normal dating relationship, although Karen had been in an abusive mockery of one. And in fact, to go on dates with Karen Page, to take her to expensive restaurants and buy her flowers, felt like a shallow thing to Matt that they didn’t need, and would gain them nothing from each other they didn’t already have. It might even upset Karen, with what it would probably remind her of.

But if the next day they went to the church and had the priest marry them, Matt couldn’t help but feel that he would be a happier man for it. In fact, as they lay there in the dark, he thought about the possibility of their sharing a home, waking up together every day, as something that might well now happen, and found it appealing. He had no idea how she felt about children, especially now, but he thought he wouldn’t mind having those with her either. He was sure she’d be an excellent mother.

Should he tell her that, now? He wanted to, to claim that future for the both of them together, make certain what was probably going to happen anyway. He thought if he said what he was thinking, she’d happily kiss him and they’d start talking about how long they should wait to marry.

But no, he thought, that wasn’t really fair. The two of them had been all they’d ever known, and now they’d be going out into the world, where either of them might find something or someone they preferred. He shouldn’t push her to make this commitment to him when she had only ever had one relationship besides him that had combined the emotional and the sexual, at least beyond general friendly affection with some of her other men, and it had been the kind of relationship that she had barely survived. Also, some part of him feared she still felt a bit of obligation towards him, though he didn’t think that too likely. They probably shouldn’t be making it either when their feelings might cloud their judgement very badly. If they didn’t find anything better for themselves besides each other, there was plenty of time to get more certain about it.

Even though he didn’t see himself getting much better than her. He didn’t deserve her anyway; he’d always known that.

So he just said, “Don’t worry, Karen. Whatever you decide to do, I’m with you. We’re with each other no matter what?”

“Yes,” she whispered back, and lifted her head enough to lightly kiss the corner of his chin.

 

####  **The Next Morning**

 

Matt was surprised by how much they both slept in. He’d always been an early riser, except for that first year after the accident when his senses had completely scrambled his sleeping habits, and on nights where he was able to go to bed at a reasonable time and sleep uninterrupted it was rare for him to last until seven in the morning. Karen had not been an early riser when she’d first gotten to the Academy, but it had turned her into one, and she’d stayed that way. But the events of the previous day, it seemed, had completely worn them both out. He woke to her climbing out of bed, clicking on her phone where she had left it on top of the nightstand, and murmuring to herself, “Past eight!”

When he made a confused noise, she shifted around, obviously looking back at him, and said, “You have anywhere to go this morning, you should probably get up too. We’ve no funerals today, thankfully.”

Matt had no plans for the day, except to be there if his mom needed him. She was up; he could hear her wandering around the kitchen, a little too listlessly, though at least she wasn’t crying. He pulled himself out of bed after his companion.

His mother had eaten breakfast already; Matt smelled the remains of it. Even so, when she heard them coming, she called to them, “Matt, Karen, want me to make anything?” As if he was eleven again. “We’ve got some eggs.”

“I’ll manage it,” said Karen. “Hard-boiled?”

So Matt sat with his one remaining parent figure in life, listening to Karen prepare eggs. “I started…” She had to pause; her voice was still weak. “I started going through your father’s things last night. He had some boxes in Mariah’s old room…I don’t even recognize most of what’s in them. I think maybe you two could help?”

“We’ll see what we can do, Mrs. Connelly,” Karen answered from the kitchen. “Though I’m not sure what we’d do with any of it now…it might have to be destroyed, if we can’t be completely sure if won’t fall into Hydra’s hands. Though then again, it might not be anything they don’t have already.”

“I don’t see why it would be,” said the older woman. “My husband was hardly one of their technological people. I could describe some of it to you right now…”

She ended up going through a lot of it as they sat and ate their eggs, and most of the descriptions were ones even Matt could recognize. There were also a couple he didn’t, but Karen did. “Sounds like one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s older kinds of communications monitors,” she said after hearing a description of a small oval-shaped black box with knobs in certain places. “The kind they hardly ever used in their final days. The big thing about them was they responded to biometric signatures when those were just coming in, were supposed to respond only to the person they were assigned to, although it wasn’t foolproof, especially if it had been programmed to somebody else before. Your husband might have never even been asked to turn it in, if S.H.I.E.L.D. had decided they had no more use for it.”

They got calls while they sat from Mariah and Stephen. Mariah also put Juliana on the phone to talk to Aunt Karen. Matt listened to Karen’s voice turn so warm as she talked to his niece, and thought again about children.

After breakfast they followed his mom upstairs. “We’re not going to turn any of this over to Colonel Talbot, right?” asked Karen.

“Not unless Hill gives the order,” said Matt. His mother made no remark; it seemed she’d trust their judgement there.

Matt zeroed in on the humming sound when the entered the room. “One of those things is still working,” he said. “Box closest by the wall. I don’t think it’s even emitting noticeable heat, but it is definitely still operating.”

“None of them seemed to be,” said his mom. “But of course none of us have your hearing.”

She opened the box, and instantly Matt knew what it was; the humming made it ridiculously easy to map the shape of the object out. “It’s the communications monitor.”

“But that shouldn’t be doing anything!” Karen protested. “When those things shut down, they shut down, and they do nothing until the right person activates them again. And they do shut down, once they haven’t been actively used for thirty days. Are you sure? It’s this thing?” She tapped the oval object.

“It’s that thing,” Matt confirmed; hearing her tap it erased any doubt.

His mother stumbled over to the bed and sat down hard. “He was still active,” she whispered. “He didn’t fully retire.”

It seemed likely. There were many older agents who did that, who went mostly into retirement and would swear they were done with the world of secret agenting, but in fact were still quietly involved in missions from time to time. It didn’t at all surprise Matt to learn his father had been one of them; he’d been more than dedicated enough.

“And that might be why he was killed,” Karen murmured. “And that also means you all might not be out of danger, if they think either of you two knew or were even involved, or even if….if he was involved in the secret mission I was involved in.”

There were two astonished “What?”s in response to that, but this wasn’t something that surprised Matt either. Karen had been moved to the Trisekelion two months ago, two months after he had been, and she had been pretty mum about why; that all made sense if it had been for need-to-know reasons, and the kind of mission where she didn’t even know any more about who she was working with than necessary.

“I mean,” said Karen, “I still have no real idea of who those motorcyclists were, but now I’m wondering if this was the reason they wanted the both of us, because then we’d both be connected to this.”

“Can you crack the device and find out more about what it was being used for?” asked his mom.

“Probably not without help, I think. If only there was somebody who survived the Sandbox that we could trust…I can try to ask around, though. Or we could look at the leaked files, but these missions aren’t always listed in the place they got those files from.”

“They’re often alluded too, though,” Matt mused, “if you know where to look. What was this mission about? Did you know, exactly?”

Her heart was beating way too fast as she said, “I know only that it involved the Goldsmith.”

“The Goldsmith?” His mother didn’t seem more than confused. “The man Matt rescued you from? I thought S.H.I.E.L.D. took him down around the time he did.”

“They took his operation down. He was initially arrested, but we didn’t have justification to hold him in the Fridge and the government couldn’t make any charges stick-he’s a smart man, the Goldsmith, always knew what he could and could not do…he disappeared-not literally, he was known to be living quietly under a new legal name in Burlington, where he still officially resides. I was told when I joined this mission that he actually genuinely seems to have been retired for three years. But he wasn’t going to stay out of it, not a man like him. I wasn’t told what S.H.I.E.L.D. thought he was doing, but I got the impression they thought he’d been doing it for a very, very long time. I don’t even know how long they’ve been working on doing something about that.

Really, all I know is two months ago, I’d just spent the worst week ever in Sardinia, and was spending twenty hours in our hospital facility in Rome, when Agent Jacob James-who was found dead in the rubble of the Triskelion with no way to tell which side he’d been on-dropped in and told me the Goldsmith was active again, and did I want to help to help deal with him? Well, of course I did, anything they wanted me to do, I was up for it.” There was a ferocity to Karen’s words now, the jaggedness of remembered pain, and rage never gone over what he had done to her and what he had turned her into. Matt suspected he didn’t even know the extent of it, though he knew a lot.

“So I was transferred here to DC, where I’ve been nominally been doing fancy training and some desk work, but my real purpose here has been to answer questions. Interviews at least every three days with Agent James and two other people whose names I don’t know and may be S.H.I.E.L.D. or Hydra or alive or dead, and I’d absolutely know them if I saw them, but I haven’t since the Triskelion went down. Everything I could possibly remember about the Goldsmith. And now who knows where that information went or who did what with it.”

She didn’t sound guilty, at least. Just really pissed off, as it was driven how to all three of them how much trust and faith they had put into the wrong hands. Matt wondered if any of them would ever be absolutely able to trust any organization or leader again.

 

####  **That Evening**

 

It was the entire day before the two of them were alone again, once again seeking refuge in each other, wrapped up in familiar silk. That was when Matt could finally ask the question he’d had since that morning. “Karen,” he whispered when she’d turned the light out and settled against him. “Do you want us to do something about the Goldsmith? I mean, besides whatever we have to do to be sure he’s not going to try anything further against us or my family? The two of us, and anyone else we can get ourselves to trust?”

She chuckled. “You know, thinking about that? Gives me purpose again. I mean, I know I should be careful about that sort of thing…”

“I understand,” he said. And he did. It had actually been thanks to S.H.I.E.L.D. that Roscoe Sweeney had been found and brought to justice; they’d come across him while after someone more dangerous. Matt had testified at the trial that had gotten him life. It hadn’t exactly been what he’d fantasized about as a teenager, when he and the Connellys had made modest efforts to find the man themselves, but in a way it had been more satisfying. Maybe, he thought, if Karen got that kind of closure, it would leave her more able to move on; it had definitely made it easier for him.

There was one thing that worried him about it, though. He knew Karen had suffered much worse at the hands of her great enemy than he had. He also knew that she didn’t necessarily have more anger and pain in her than he did(that was impossible to be sure about), but she was much more inclined to let it rule her, and not just when she let it take over during a fight. He also knew that, when it came down to it, she was much faster to pull the trigger than he was, and while he didn’t believe she’d ever killed without genuinely believing it to be necessary, well, sometimes, she’d been very fast to come to the conclusion that it was.

He hoped she didn’t kill the Goldsmith. He feared that if she did, it would be in such a way and under such circumstances that the act would haunt her for the rest of her life, and instead of being free of him, she would doom herself to never be.


	4. Their Own Odyssey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cracking the device, and a dinnertime visit.

Matt was in the brace for five more weeks. The first week he and Karen pored best they could over the long, long list of people Hydra had intended to kill using the helicarriers that day, after it occurred to them that any agents on it would be trustworthy. Twenty million names made it pretty much impossible to browse, but they found a searchable version of it and sought out names of people they knew. It was in this manner they found Milton Havett. He was one of the last names they thought of, one Matt had heard once, possibly as Agent Simmons’ boyfriend(strangely, there was no word on her fate at all, and even more bizarrely, he hadn't spotted her name anywhere in the S.H.I.E.L.D. records he'd looked at so far. Agent Logaard was confirmed as killed by Hydra), and he didn’t know much about him, but Hydra had apparently found him worth killing.

They spent the next week trying to find out where he was. They heard from of their other agents that he’d been in the Hub and been transported by to DC and interviewed by one of Talbot’s men, but when they’d seen him on that list, they’d let him go, and he’d taken off to no one knew where. Someone finally said they thought he had a brother in Baltimore, and Karen took a trip up there and came back with five different email addresses; he’d had a thing about using multiple personal accounts. “His brother insists it was probably just to troll people,” said Karen, “instead of anything more ominous.” Matt hoped she had refrained from expressing her general opinion on trolls to the guy’s brother.

It took nearly the entirety of the third week before Agent Havett finally responded, and his first email wasn’t very promising. But Matt and Karen were both pretty good at persuading people do things, and Amanda Connelly was no slouch at it herself, and when she actually got on the phone with him and made her plea, speaking even of how scared she remained for her children and grandchildren, it proved a turning point.

In the middle of May, he finally came to DC, and the four of them sat in the basement, the two women watching and Matt listening as he first took what readings he could off the communications monitor. “Still gathering information,” was the first thing he told them. “That doesn’t really tell us much; it would’ve been much more interesting if it hadn’t been.” Karen didn’t bite her tongue, but Matt heard her want to. A few minutes later: “Been used before. That good; that means I can crack it.” Matt found himself wondering, for the first time, whether or not he actually wanted the information they would get out of this to confirm Karen’s theory.

It had been weeks, he thought, and no one else had attempted to kill any of them. Three days ago, he and Karen had officially gotten word the investigation into S.H.I.E.L.D. had cleared them of all wrongdoing, at least until further notice, and they were free to leave DC anytime they liked. He was already looking into various law schools, and he really wanted to be enrolled in one by the following winter, and that was a process that was going to take a lot of time and labor. Karen had sworn she wouldn’t allow this quest to get in the way of that, but despite their best efforts it might still happen.

And more than anything, he still had that fear that this would all end the wrong way for her.

“I’ll want to be paid,” said Agent Havett.

“I’ll do it,” said Matt’s mother, before either of the other two could speak, and then, before they could protest, “No, allow me to. You both are going to need all your money to start your lives over, and this is for the protection of all our family.”

He heard her head and voice turn towards Karen, and the latter’s heart jump and flutter; the communication made there was obvious. Did she think she might have Karen as a daughter-in-law? It was very possible. But then again, she might be willing to adopt her even without that.

Still, he said, “Honestly, given how much I imagine you’re going to charge us, Agent Havett? We should split this up.”

“Hey, I’m willing to negotiate a price. But I won’t go below a hundred an hour.”

“We don’t need to go above two hundred then,” said Matt. He suspected this young man, who had spent most of his life sheltered in first the Science Academy and then the Sandbox and similar places, had no real idea how much he should ask for, and while he was hesitant about exploiting the guy too much, he feared his mom might ultimately still insist on paying the whole thing, and he wouldn’t have her losing too much. So he added, “Maybe not even above 150.”

“150, then,” he said, in what Matt could tell was his most aggressive voice, which still wasn’t very aggressive. “It’ll probably take me between four and five hours, maybe six. I won’t linger at it to increase the cost, though; as it happens, I don’t want to stay in this city any longer than I have to-you can tell I’m being honest here, right?”

“I can,” said Matt. If went up to $900, he thought, Karen would somehow get his mother to accept a contribution from her; they might even get her to take one from him too. That led him to be nice to the guy and say, “That’ll do?”

The two women agreed, and Agent Havett left with the device, and they were left to wait. It wasn’t that different, all together, from having a member of the science team go off with whatever needed to be tested, except that it was.

Dinner was eaten with Stephen and his wife, which meant the conversation was about his job and her sister, and not about S.H.I.E.L.D. at all. But when they had said goodbye and they were left alone in the house, Karen said, “You really took charge with Havett back there you know?”

“Did you not want me too?” he asked nervously. Had he been most people, she wouldn’t have, unless they’d been above her on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s chain of command.

“Not exactly,” she said, carefully. “You were always the one of us better at talking to people. Just remember, you don’t outrank me anymore.”

 

####  **Two Days Later**

 

Matt wasn’t out of the brace yet, but the previous day the doctor had switched it out for a smaller one. Now it controlled the movement of only the lower part of his spine, and while he didn’t have full movement of his leg, his knee was freed. He’d walked by himself for much of the day, around the Connelly household where he could, but by evening had been glad to have Karen’s support again. He tried walking again by himself the following morning, but by the time Milton Havett returned after lunch, with the device now gone quiet and a huge binder full of paper, he was back on her arm.

This time they sat down in the living room, and he said, “I was able to get it to print out a list of all the messages it has intercepted over the past six months before it killed itself on me. Some of the messages even came with sections of their content, though most it’s only numbers to indicate who they’re from or too. This is the only printout I got, though; if you want a braille version, you’re going to have to type it up yourselves, and that would take a very long time.”

“I’ll filter out what’s important first, then,” were Karen’s words to that. “At any rate I know the numbers I’m looking for; if they’re there, we’ll have confirmed that Mr. Connelly was working against the Goldsmith…” He heard the folder open, and an inhale that told him everything. “He was.” Her voice is colder now, harder, that of the agent focusing in on the situation at hand.

Agent Havett was already on his feet. “No,” he said, “you will not talk about this around me. I worked for five and a half hours. You will pay me $825 and I will leave and you will never contact me again.”

Matt felt sad, that a former colleague felt the need to flee from them like this, but Karen just said, “In cash? We might not have that on hand.”

“You can write a check; that’s fine. Just do it now.”

“Let me contribute at least a couple hundred of that Mrs. Connelly,” she said to Matt’s mom. “I’ll get my checkbook.”

“That’s hardly necessary,” started the other woman.

“No, you’re not arguing about this either,” said Agent Havett. “Reimburse her later. I want one check now.”

“We could do that, Karen,” Matt reminded her. If nothing else, they could leave the money at the house in cash when they departed DC.

So his mom wrote the check while Karen flipped through the binder, and Matt listened to her quiet reactions to what she was reading. Havett’s thank you was curt, his footsteps fast, his slamming of the door behind him loud. Its echoes in Matt’s ears almost threatened to drown out his mother’s quiet, “So what will you do now, Karen?”

“Finish my final mission as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and make sure no one hurts you two or your loved ones, Mrs. Connelly. Matt, are you with me?”

“Absolutely,” he said, and it was only the presence of his mother that kept his answer from instead being _Always_ ; she’d take that the wrong way.

“I’ll work on typing this up, then. Although even glancing over it, I can say right away they knew a lot more about the Goldsmith’s movements than they told me. Maybe on purpose-it looked like he’d gotten into the smuggling of weapons and some high tech as well as drugs, much more than he did back when I was working for him, and some of the consumers listed here we now know were fronts for Hydra, and there’s no way Hydra didn’t have someone working with us and probably secretly doing whatever they could to slow us down or red tape us out of getting things accomplished.”

“Then the Goldsmith would expect us to know all this,” said Matt. “He’ll probably do whatever he can to make the information here useless.”

“He might not know exactly what we know,” said Karen. “Unfortunately, right now we have no idea what only your father knew, and what he reported back, or who among those he reported it back too reported it further.”

“He won’t know he’s being tracked now, will he?” pointed out Matt’s mom.

“No, but he’ll be prepared anyway; he’s no fool.” She always said things like that, as if his intelligence remained exaggerated in her head, even after she’d rejected all the other ideas about himself he’d planted in there. “But he can be lulled into complacency; if we wait another month, it might be just as well; he might think the threat is passed, especially if once we start taking actions, we make them unnoticed for as long as possible.”

“That’s not going to be easy if we go up to Vermont,” said Matt. “Do you think he’ll remember our faces?”

“Probably not yours. Mine…” The shrug of her shoulders was accompanied by a rough rustle of hair. “I suppose that depends how much he watches his older home videos.” There was still pain there, over what those videos consisted of.

Both of them ended up walking with her upstairs to what had been his dad’s office, and Matt offered to stay with her as she typed, but both his companions objected. “You should be resting somewhere more comfortable,” his mom insisted. “Come back downstairs and keep me company instead.”

For the first couple of days after her husband’s death, Amanda Connelly had been excused all of the various tasks that had to be done when somebody was dead, especially by foul play, with her children, Karen, and various other friends taking care of them, but once she had stepped up and taken over the funeral arrangements there’d been surprisingly little time when she hadn’t been busy. And with Matt and Karen having been constantly in each other’s company since fleeing the Triskelion together, indeed with them clinging together probably beyond what was healthy, this was the first time the two of them had been alone together without any immediate task on hand that required both their concentration.

She helped him to the couch, and encouraged him to lie down, despite the scratchiness of the cover it was relieving to press into it. “Want to listen to the radio?”

“Anything but news.”

“Agree with you there,” she said, and flipped through a few stations before hitting the soft rock station. It was playing Adele mixed with too much static. Outside rush hour was well underway, and the neighbor’s cat was wandering in front of the house. Mariah had brought her youngest two here when he had been at the doctor; their grandmother had fed them their favorite chocolates. There was definitely going to be a thunderstorm sometime within the next twenty hours or so; the air conditioner was working overly hard try to deal with the heat and humidity.

His mother was planning to make them her meat stew that night; she’d bought the vegetables for it at one of the farmer’s markets in the area she liked to frequent. She wasn’t losing sleep anymore, or even relying on medication for it, and the saline scent that had clung to her for so long was at last fading. She sat down and picked up a book; probably her current reading, a biography of a 17th-century French landscape designer named André Le Notre. She’d read aloud to him at least once a week until he had turned 16, mostly because they’d both enjoyed it. Sometimes he wished she’d still do it; he didn’t usually care about historical landscape designers, but she might have made one sound interesting, and anyway, her voice and her concentration on the words would’ve reassured him both about her caring for him and about the stability of her own mind.

Because he still had some doubts about that point, especially when her heart had taken to quickening and slowing at the most random times, probably guided by stray thoughts that were attacking her. Even now, he heard it, just before he heard the pages shift as she lowered the book; she hadn’t turned any of its pages.

“I used to be prepared for this, you know,” she said. “When…when he was active. But then I thought…”

“I know,” he said gently. She really hadn’t seemed too shocked to learn he hadn’t retired completely, but her being upset about this was understandable; there was an argument his dad should’ve been honest with her.

“I shouldn’t ask this.” Her voice was too low. “A parent shouldn’t be the one asking this advice from their child. But…”

“When I lost my father? My first father, you mean?” He’d been thinking a lot about that in the past weeks anyway, that man he had never, ever forgotten. Geoff Connelly had been his father for so long even the guilt he’d felt when he’d first realized he wasn’t thinking of the man even as his foster father, but simply as his _father_ , was a distant memory, but he’d certainly never been his only one.

“It’s not a fair comparison, I know. You were a child with no one else in the world. Me, well, I’m not at all lost without him; we saw to it from the start that I never would be. But…”

“It’s not going to be the same,” said Matt. “Time will make it better, but it won’t make it the same. Not even if you find someone to take his place.” Which he didn’t think his mother would, although he supposed it was possible; he’d never expected to find a true second father.

“And you know,” she said, “I feel guilty for leaving him in the house. Even though I know I was probably right to. Well, at least you need not blame yourself now; he wasn’t targeted because of you.”

He hadn’t told her he’d been thinking that. But then, she knew him well. She’d spent more than one night when he’d been twelve and struggling to sleep and crying over his dad trying to talk to him about how that wasn’t his fault. He’d heard all sorts of comments to that effect from everyone, from the thoughtless remark of one of his Academy classmates that his father hadn’t been right in the head, to the well-meant speculation by Phil Coulson that he might have had reasons Matt knew nothing about to believe the mob would sooner or later kill him anyway and so decided to go on his own terms, to Karen’s angry declaration that the reasons for doing what he did died with him and they shouldn’t presume to know them. But his mother had made more speeches to him than the rest of them put together.

Karen’s parents, last anyone heard, were still alive. She had always made clear she never wanted to set eyes on them again as long as she lived. They had to both be worried she might now have to, if their mission took them to her home town.

He didn’t try to tell his mother it wasn’t her fault. He knew it wouldn’t help any.

The Adele song ended; the DJ announced the time as close to three. “Are you going to call Jessie’s mother-in-law today?” he asked her.

“In an hour,” she said, and she picked up her book again. Matt waited to hear that first page turn.

Upstairs, he heard Karen gasp and murmur, “Him…well, then, it’s a good thing we’re doing this.”

 

####  **That Evening**

 

Matt really did love it when his mom made the meat stew with the freshly bought farmer’s market vegetables; that was probably why she’d made the effort today. Karen too had developed an appreciation for her cooking over the past few weeks, and she came downstairs after hours of typing and printing with about fifty pages worth of some of the most vital information and tore in with even more gusto than him. “I’m going to miss this,” she commented after a few minutes of eating.

“You’ll be welcome back anytime,” said Matt’s mom. “In fact, I’d be disappointed if I never saw you.”

“You will,” said Matt. Even if they went up to New York, it was a lot closer to DC than most of the places he’d lived in since leaving home. He could come down for all the holidays if he wanted to. Plus once they finished this last mission she’d probably want to pay at least a short visit to New York just to help them settle in. If he made it into law school she’d probably want to come see the campus; it had always irked her she’d never been allowed to even know where the Academy was. There would be plenty of her in the future.

“Oh, I know I’ll see you,” said his mom, and he didn’t even need the enhanced senses to know she was looking pointedly at Karen.

But at that moment, those senses told him something else, and he barely heard Karen’s reply, or felt the heat that her cheeks radiated out. Initially he told himself he was imagining things, that he hadn’t been in her company enough to be absolutely sure of her heartbeat anyway, or even that she could just be walking by, and he continued to eat his dinner without showing any reaction. But when he recognized her stride too, the same one he’d once heard her keep up for ten minutes nonstop, no, it was her. And he heard her turn up the walk just as Karen asked, “Matt?” he and he realized he’d missed a question from them. “Caught in the senses?” she asked gently; that still happened once in a great while.

His answer was simply, “Maria Hill is walking up to our door.” A moment later the doorbell was rung.

“The three of us deal with her together?” asked Karen.

“Had she said she was coming I would’ve made more stew,” said Matt’s mom, “but I’ll offer her a taste.”

Matt did go upstairs to get his glasses, though, so as he rejoined the women at the door it was Karen opening it, saying, “Good evening, Agent Hill.”

“That’s just Ms. Hill now, Ms. Page.” Her voice was sad, but there was more than a touch of anger in it. “Now what are you and Mr. Murdock doing?”

Matt considered holding back; he wasn’t good at lying. But Karen decided against it anyway, answering, “Taking down the man who used and abused me, nearly ruined my life, and then nearly got me killed. Which I was assigned to do, and just because S.H.I.E.L.D.’s gone doesn’t mean he should get to run around and commit any crime he wants. I’ve been told the mission comes first, and I’ve got one last mission to complete.”

“You do realize,” Hill sighed as Matt joined them by the door, “that you have no legal right to do that anymore. You get caught and don’t ask me for any help.”

“Wasn’t planning to,” shrugged Karen. “And I notice you didn’t threaten to report me there.”

“No,” she admitted. “I won’t. But I’ll urge you to reconsider.”

“Don’t bother,” Matt told her. “When Karen gets her mind set on something, she’ll never reconsider.”

“So I’ve heard. But what about you, Mr. Murdock? Do you really want to go breaking the law before you go off to practice it? The two of you could walk away and have a good life together, and I know you know that. Honestly, I think you should do that, Ms. Page. It’s not like you truly made a choice when you joined S.H.I.E.L.D.; you weren’t in position to refuse, really.”

“If I had had a choice, I would’ve chosen to do exactly what I did. And anyway, someone has to do this, and I don’t think we can trust the government to do it, because Agent Connelly was monitoring far too many CIA agents for me to think that organization isn’t heavily involved, including the Associate Deputy Director.” That had been the name he had heard Karen reacting to earlier that day. Having read all she’d typed up so far, Matt agreed with her assessment there.

And from Maria Hill’s breathing, she was inclined to trust her judgement. Matt pressed it further with, “It’s only logical for there to be some Hydra presence in the CIA. I suppose if they’d actually been completely in control of the agency that would’ve been harder to keep out of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s records, but given the CIA’s general mission and some of the things they’ve done in the past half a century, it’s hard to believe Hydra wouldn’t want to at least have some people there to keep the CIA from interfering in their own activities.”

“I’m aware of all that,” said Hill, the kind of ambiguous statement that would make Matt listen hard to the heart of most people making it, but he knew she had the ability to keep him from reading her. “But do you two really think you can go up against such a powerful government agency all by yourselves?”

“Well,” said Karen pointedly, “you could always help us.”

“Oh no,” she said. “That’s not what I’m doing anymore, and I’ve got very good reasons for that I’m not going to go into. But…”

She stepped into the house, and Matt’s mom naturally asked, “Would you like a bite to eat?”

“Thanks, Mrs. Connelly, but no. If you two are really going to be doing this, it’s best for all four of us I don’t linger here long. But first, again, if you’re doing this, you’re going to need at least a little help. Get me a piece of paper and a pen.” When Matt’s mom when to get it, she said to Matt, “I trust you won’t be terrible offended if I just write one copy of it and let Ms. Page read it out loud to you?”

“Write hard enough and I’ll be able to read that,” Matt offered. “More discreet too.” It looked like he would have to be the nice one, if the way Karen’s breaths were harsh in and out of her nose was any indication.

The paper and pen was brought, and Maria wrote what sounded like a name, a number, and a few more words on it. “Good luck,” she said as she handed it to Karen. “I won’t say it’s impossible for me to be of any more help to you, especially not if you end up in New York, since I think I’m going to be living there, but don’t hold your breath.”

“Good luck to you too, then,” said Matt, and his mom echoed some well-wishing as Maria closed the door. Karen’s saying nothing was probably a favor as well.

At least she spoke after a minute, to recite the name that Maria had left them with: “Sharon Carter. Also known as Agent 13. I thought I heard something about her joining the CIA. She’s left us with both phone and email that I don’t think are the ones she puts down on forms.”


	5. Farewell to DC

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A meeting with Agent 13, and what came after.

“I knew about Associate Deputy Director Merns already,” Sharon Carter was saying. “Figured that one out within the first week. I still don’t have any evidence against him I can actually make use of, and with the device itself now deader than dead this won’t help either. If you two find anything for me, of course…”

“Of course,” said Matt. The three of them were in his father’s old office, alone in the house; his mother had gone off just before her arrival to spend an evening with Mariah and her family. Carter had confirmed she was working within the CIA to root out the Hydra elements in it, and hinted that she had even specifically taken her new job for the purpose. She’d been odd about it, though; her heart didn’t indicate she’d left much out, but for numbered agents that meant nothing, and Matt was pretty sure there was something she wasn’t telling them. Still, he trusted her far enough for this.

“As for the rest of the names you’ve gotten out of this, some of them I knew or suspected already, but some I didn’t, so I thank you for that, and I’d now have to keep an eye on them anyway. Form the kind of email account I did, and I’ll report to you what I find out. I’m already looking into Jasper Sitwell, trying to find out how long he was working for Hydra. If he was when he took Matt and those two students on that mission, that could definitely be significant to you.”

“But what about the Goldsmith?” asked Karen. “Do you have anything on him?”

She shook her head. “No. Honestly, until you contacted me, I had never even heard of Max Obderbrowski, or his time going by that moniker. I’ve looked into him since, of course, but there isn’t much in the recent records about him. And while I can certainly try to find out if he’s interacting with any of my colleagues, although remember that’s not information anyone in the organization will want me to have…well, even if he is a threat, he’s not the CIA’s job, or at least they won’t see him as their job.”

“You have any contacts with the FBI, then?”

“No, you’ll have to rely on someone else for that. I’ll just give you what I can, and take any information you’re willing to give me. Though speaking of the FBI, what if they have Hydra moles? You’d need them to do anything legal against Obderbrowski, with the kind of crimes he’d be likely to be involved in.”

“I know the FBI’s doing an investigation into their own ranks,” Matt told her. “That’s public news, of course, but Karen, you said a couple of your friends have heard from their friends they’re not doing it for show or to cover things up? That they genuinely want to root any Hydra operatives out, even if they get embarrassed in the process?”

“I have,” Karen quickly confirmed. “Agents Zamir and Obbados both said it.”

“I’ve heard whispers of similar,” said Carter. “Maybe we could rely on them to take your Goldsmith into custody if slipped the proof and keep him there.”

“Let’s hope so,” said Matt, and he was sure Karen knew what he was thinking.

“Meanwhile,” she said, looking around, “would there be any objection if I maybe came back here sometime and looked through Agent Connelly’s old files? I suppose I should really ask Mrs. Connelly about that…”

“You should,” Matt agreed. “But honestly, I doubt she’ll have any trouble with it if she knows you’re a friend of ours. Although she may also insist on feeding you if you stay late enough, but that might not be a bad thing.”

“That would be nice, actually,” said Carter. “My own cooking skills are pretty mediocre. I suppose I shouldn’t let her too much if we want this to remain a covert alliance…”

“Once or twice?”

“Maybe.” She rose. “Email me when you have the account set up?”

“We will,” said Karen. “I think I already know which of the servers we’ll use.”

They saw her downstairs and to the door, and shook hands with her in farewell, and then she was gone. Matt and Karen were left alone in the house.

He had been out of the brace for over a week now, and was well on the path to being back in fighting shape physically, enough so that they would probably have the date for their departure from DC set within another. But much as he had worked to avoid and get past muscle atrophy, Matt was still finding himself tired out at the end of the day if he’d spent even a normal amount of it standing up or walking. It wasn’t even eight yet and already the release of tension with the meeting with Agent 13 being over had brought on the onset of fatigue.

Karen noticed, of course. Lately he was starting to think she’d gotten as good at reading him as he already was at reading her. “We can go upstairs,” she said. “At least for a little while. I’m tired too.” She even offered her arm, which Matt certainly didn’t need, especially within the house, but he took anyway.

Though even at her first words her heart was beating too fast, and her skin was too hot. An increase in both combined with shortened breathing as they went off, and by the time they reached his bedroom, she was fully aroused. Matt stopped them, and sighed, “Do you really want to have sex in my childhood bed?”

“Can you blame me? It’s silk sheets, Matt. When am I going to get that chance again? Heck, when are you going to? It’s obvious you never did anything there as a teenager. Did you ever even dare jerk off in them?”

“Once or twice. Very rarely.” He’d spent far more time on his knees praying for forgiveness for such lapses; bad enough how many times he’d done it in the shower in the morning back then. “Though you know, if anything happens to my current sheets, I’ll probably get silk ones as a replacement, at least if it does in the next few years. I mean, I’m sure the textile industry will sooner or later experiment with all the designs of Agents Simmons and Logaard that are now on the net, but they’ll probably be even more expensive for a while.”

On the other hand, he thought, words like this implied he thought she should stay with him, pressure he didn’t want to put on her, even accidentally and out of other motives.

“Obviously,” Karen continued, “we weren’t going to do anything with your mother in the house. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been comfortable with that either. Also you were in the brace. But you’re completely healed now, she won’t be back for hours; we’ll be asleep long before then, and this may be the only chance we have to have sex at all before we leave DC, and even when we get where we’re going, we might have trouble finding the time. If you really don’t want to I’ll understand, of course, but, well…I think you might.”

She wasn’t wrong. It had been the right thing for them, to just sleep together the way they had without doing anything more, to have that comfort and closeness without complicating it further. But it had meant a lot of less than pure thoughts at night, a lot more wet dreams than he’d had in recent years (he was grateful she’d made no comment about that), and more than one moment when he had wanted very badly to just kiss her, roll her onto her back, press her down into the sheets, and make love to her like there was no tomorrow, in the way he hadn’t been able to while still injured anyway.

Still, “I can’t promise I won’t freak out.”

“If it makes you uncomfortable we can always stop.”

He took them forward and pushed the door open, but said, “There are no condoms in the house that I know of. This is a very Catholic household.”

“My shot’s still good, I got out of that hospital in Rome tested clean, and I haven’t had sex with anyone besides you for nearly a year. You went through the normal checkup in the Triskelion, right?”

“Yeah, and it’s been a few months for me since before that, so I know I’m clean.” That brought on very mixed feelings, though, the idea of having sex without a condom, which he’d never done in his life. He was pretty sure he would feel the difference far more than most men would, and that he would like it. But he worried, too, that having experienced the alternative would leave him unable to fully enjoy sex with a condom.

Not that he would necessarily have to go back to them, if he and Karen stuck together. But he didn’t want to rely on that.

With him still hesitant, Karen slipped her arm out of his and went and saw down on the bed. “We could just make out,” she said. “Neither of us ever got to do even that, and I know you probably don’t feel like you were robbed over it, but, well, I do.”

There was a lot Karen felt she was robbed over, which was only right of her. Thinking about it like that for a moment led Matt to say, “If that really would make you feel better, well, it’s not like I wouldn’t enjoy it a lot. Maybe too much, honestly.”

“Like I said, just call a stop to it if you really don’t want to.” She walked to the bed, and jumped lightly onto it, knowing what hearing her body in action and feeling the currents in the air from it would do to him, even before she pulled the blankets back to partially unmake the bed.

He saw down next to her, trying not to give in to the urge to put he hands in his lap and bend his head as if he was looking at the floor, because they weren’t awkward teenagers, and that was one part of this fantasy he didn’t feel like recreating and didn’t think she did either. “How do we start this, anyway?” he asked.

“Well, I don’t know how we would’ve were we ten years younger, but I think this will do,” she said, and started kissing him, softly and chastely at first. But when he started to kiss back things went pretty fast; half a minute later he was on top of her with her tongue aggressive in his mouth. They hadn’t even kissed on the mouth that much since they started sleeping here, and this was another thing Matt had missed, just tasting her this way, listening to the sounds in her throat, the air flying in and out of it faster and faster, her hands in his hair, fingers moving to stroke his ears and send shivers through him, her body shifting soft against the sheets.

By the time they came up for air, also, he was close to fully hard, and the heat of her arousal was rushing through her body and out of it to his. They should had known better than to think they could stop at kissing. Matt had never been good at that with anyone, what with how responsive his body was, and she really had gotten herself worked up just from the thoughts of what they might do together on these sheets.

When the bulge in his pants brushed over her thigh, Karen moaned, and her legs moved apart slightly. Her skirt kept them from going too far, but it was enough for the smell of her to get much thicker in the air. It was a smell that had always gotten to Matt, right from the early years, when it had meant recovery from what had been done to her. She’d told him then it had been half a year since she’d started at the Academy before she’d been able to get wet again; she'd ultimately been frigid for nearly two years.

She knew what it did to him, too. Her breathing was way too quick and her voice too excited, as she pulled away to whisper, “Do you want to stop here, before we get too far gone? Or do you want…”

He did not want to stop; that much he was clear on. Answering her second question wasn’t quite as easy, but after giving himself another minute and a few more kisses, he answered, “I think I want to go down on you. Eat you out until you’ve come at least once, maybe twice. Or maybe just get in you for the second one.”

“You’ll need to, won’t you?” Her voice was a little hoarse, her heart hammering from his words. “You won’t want to come on these sheets, right?” And of course, he couldn’t come on her. That she’d never be able to stand.

In fact, the thought worried Matt, and he said, “Karen, have _you_ done this without a condom? After S.H.I.E.L.D. took you in, I mean?” Before then, of course, had been the reason he had to worry.

“Once,” she said readily. “Just after the shot kicked in. I wanted to see if I could.”

“That wasn’t healthy of you,” he said, a little dismayed. He hoped it had been with one of the other guys she was more comfortable with, at least. Why hadn’t he been available?

“Well, I did it anyway,” she retorted, as unrepentant as she always was. “And so now I know I’m good with it.” She was pulling at her top, and added, “Get my skirt off? And your own stuff off?”

Matt maybe only fully realized how much he'd missed this when he had Karen’s legs on his shoulders and his mouth full of her, had her body thrumming in response to his ministrations. He loved doing this to any woman, but to Karen especially. He knew just which paths on her flesh to carve with his tongue, could tell just by just how her blood was engorging her when to tease, when to bring his lips in and suck, when to slide his fingers in. When she got close he groaned in anticipation, and that first orgasm found his entire face pressed to her skin to feel it quiver, losing himself in her pleasure, still lapping greedily at her juices. He’d been in that position the first time, the second orgasm she’d ever had, she’d told him later, the first coming at her own hands only days earlier. The knowledge still humbled him.

He stayed there a little longer, lingering, keeping her body twitching, her blood thunder in his ears. But he didn’t know how much longer he could last, and he really did want to make her come around him. She’d been the first woman he’d managed that with; before her he’d always needed to have his mouth down there instead, and from the moment he’d first experienced the sensation of her inner walls clenching around his dick while her body shuddered with pleasure, Matt had been hooked. Still he found himself hesitant, worry lingering, as he pulled up and had his dick brushing up at her entrance, reaching out for her hands. With one of them she found his and whispered, “Come on, Matt. I promise, I won’t break.”

She kept her hold on it, and with the other reached down to start working her clit as Matt pushed in. He hissed with the heat of it, the wetness, the slippery feeling of skin on skin. When fully sheathed, he had to pause and try to breathe, head against her chest, centering himself by listening to her heart. She was getting close again, and a good thing too, because he was almost completely gone already.

His thrusts were slow, both out of lingering worry for her reaction and to try to last just a little longer, God, he never wanted this to end. This was something he’d done plenty of times before, but not like this. Karen’s sweet inner flesh had never pressed itself into his skin, smeared itself around the head of his dick until he thought his head would explode just from that, tightened itself with no barrier to accommodate until he felt taken and consumed, and when her legs locked themselves around the small of his back he let them push his hips forward, drinking in her moans. He didn’t know how different it felt to her, but he did know how good he was making her feel, her body now able to tell him that in yet one more secret, searingly intimate way.

He was lost when she came. That sent him over half the time anyway, especially when she was as loud and as violent in her limbs as this. Now, the almost unbearable heat she had inside took him to the brink, and the first clench of her body around his dick, even before her orgasm hit the rest of her, finished him off. He nearly screamed with it, his body wrecked with his pleasure, his everything wrecked further with Karen’s. It faded slowly for both, although even after his orgasm had passed, Matt still kept moving as best he could, worked Karen though the end of hers, until at last her head and arms thudded against the silk, and she let out a long, contented sigh.

For the first minute or so, as they just lay there, Matt’s mind was quiet, allowing him to simply feel happy as he and Karen shifted until he was more laying against her than on top of her. But when she pulled herself up, said, “We really do need to get some towels; I’ll do it,” kissed him, and left the room, Matt was left alone, and the guilt started to set in.

It wasn’t even just doing this in this bed, in this house, knowing the fact alone that he’d waited until his mother wasn’t here to know about it made that something to be ashamed of. As he listened to Karen move about the bathroom, he heard her make a noise of discomfort as she peed, groan in protest as she leaned over the sink. He had used her to satisfy his own lust, something especially wrong to do to her given her history. His focusing on the carnal pleasure of skin on skin was made worse by that too; even if she’d done this before, even if she’d been enjoying herself during the act, they couldn’t really know how the experience would ultimately affect her, even now. After all, her last go with it had been very different circumstances, when there hadn’t been the stress of their world having recently been destroyed to consider.

And that was leaving out the lingering worry, especially now, as to whether he should be bedding her at all. Even if her ability to consent wasn’t in question-that first time between them hadn’t happened until she’d been able to tell him with a steady heartbeat that she understood she could refuse him whenever she wanted to, the more time they had with S.H.I.E.L.D. no longer existing, the more aware he became of how they were both clinging to what they knew, and she, as Colonel Talbot and Maria Hill had both pointed out, hadn’t really had a choice in what she’d ended up having to cling to in the first place. Even if it, and he, was what Karen sincerely believed she wanted, just about everything else she’d ever known in her life had been the stuff of nightmares. There was an argument he’d been taking advantage of her for years, and he ought to beg her for forgiveness. Except, of course, if he tried, she’d yell at him that she was no victim anymore and she’d made her choices herself of who got into her bed from the time he’d enabled her to have that right-she’d said that line to him more than once, heartbeat unshakable.

At least she seemed good when she returned with a pair of dampened towels, heart practically sedate, even humming a little under her breath, and if she wasn’t quite walking normally, she was so close to it Matt didn’t think she was even feeling any soreness. She tossed the towels onto the bed and they each took one and cleaned themselves. Once dry and changed into her silk nightgown, she lay herself on top of the blankets Matt had crawled under, not even caring about the wet spot, the sex having left him now truly exhausted. Her body was practically singing its good mood, and she clearly wasn’t feeling at all sleepy; she was just keeping him company.

“I’m wondering if Sitwell wanted me dead,” she said. “I’m pretty sure the Goldsmith did; I knew too much by then, and I’d actually said things to him…hadn’t refused to obey his commands, but made clear I really didn’t like it.”

“He might not have,” said Matt. “After all, when it came time to send someone into the basement to get at you, he sent me. I thought that odd at the time, you know. We’d already heard enough about you I wasn’t sure you weren’t someone he ought to have gone and handled himself. Maybe he was hoping I wouldn’t kill you.”

“He did yell at you, though,” she said. “But if he was working for Hydra, I suppose that could’ve just been for appearances. Still, we can’t know.”

“I would like to think it, though. That he wasn’t entirely evil.”

“Me too,” she said. “That’s strange, isn’t it? I mean, he didn’t really mentor me much. Lead me through the evaluations, but he wasn’t very nice about that. Really, my wanting to think better of him is just…” There was a deep fury, there. Matt understood it. They were both still struggling with the fact that so many of the people they’d worked with had been who they’d been. But ultimately, he forgave, and she didn’t.

“Not at all,” he said gently. “He’s dead; there’s no need to hate him, and no point wasting energy on it.”

“You’re right,” she said, and leaned into to press her head against his. She’d scrubbed her face in the bathroom and brushed her hair just now. He didn’t think there would be a time when her touch would ever be unwelcome to him. Or even a time where he would refuse anything she offered him. He’d had it reinforced tonight that he was too weak for that.

 

####  **A few weeks later**

 

The three of Mitt’s siblings that no longer lived in DC were long gone, but Mariah, George, and Jessie all came to see them off, despite the early hour. George’s wife had packed them lunches for the drive in which she swore the lettuce was absolutely fresh; it did genuinely smell so. Mariah’s children hugged both of them, and Juliana asked Karen if they would be back soon.

“For Christmas,” says Matt’s mom, before Karen can give her own answer. She knows they won’t contradict that. He hopes they can make good on that anyway.

They’d packed up the rented car the previous day with all the contents of both their apartments they’d have room for in the flat they’d rented in Burlington. They rest had gone into storage. There’d been surprisingly little there; neither of them had ever carried around very many possessions. Nobody had made any comments even as it had become obvious that Matt and Karen were planning to share an apartment when they reached their destination, but Mariah and Jessie had both audibly smirked at them more than once.

His mother was the only one who knew they were going to Vermont. The others all thought they were going to New York, and that they were at least going to live there until such time as Matt decided to attend law school somewhere else. It was hardly the first such lie Matt had been obliged to tell his siblings, but he felt this one much more strongly than he had the previous ones.

“Call me when you get there,” he mom said as Karen climbed into the driver’s seat, and Matt sat down beside her, carefully avoiding knocking his feet into the new laptop they had put in front of it. Jessie had commented that this was an odd place to put it. None of them knew, of course, that they were about to put it to important use during the trip.

Matt received kisses from each of his sisters one last time, and George said to him, “Take care of yourself, Matt. We mean it.”

“I know,” he said. “I will.”

His mother might have been crying a little bit; at the very least her smell made clear she was close to it. He started waving as Karen turned on the ignition. “They’re waving back,” she confirmed for him as the car starting to move.

He stopped as he felt them turn a corner, and then they were on their way. Matt found himself still listening even as they pulled further away. He felt a sharp stab when he heard Juliana’s voice ask, “Mom, they aren’t in danger of getting killed anymore, right?”

“I hope not,” he heard Mariah’s voice answer.

“Well,” he heard Jessie say hopefully, “the news is claiming a lot of the people being held by S.H.I.E.L.D. who Hydra broke out are now accounted for, right? And we haven’t heard about any other former agents getting killed by the others either.”

Their conversation went on that way for far too long, his mother silent throughout all of it, even as they seemed to go into the house for brunch. But thankfully by the time they got far enough away their voices grew harder to hear they were starting to talk about other things. And then he couldn’t listen any more anyway, because Karen was driving her way through Georgetown, and in a moment he would have something else to do.

“I’ll park at the far end, out of immediate sight,” she said. “I’ll let you out near the fountain, so you’ll have to walk the park’s length, but it’s not that big.” Matt listened to the sounds of the Potomac, growing louder as Karen drove down to the riverbank and finally stopped at the edge of Georgetown Waterfront Park.

Matt stepped out of the car and walked towards the sounds of the fountain and the children playing in its streams, as Sharon had instructed. His shoes and his cane tapped out the changing patterns of the pavement, until finally he reached the railing on its edge, the river water flowing below him. He kept his hand on it as he moved to the right, until his cane tapped the legs holding the plaque up. It listed the donors who had paid for the park, according to Sharon, and under its edges there was room to hide a flash drive.

He found it quickly, securely enclosed in that special magnetic sleeve designed to hold flash drives without putting their contents as risk for being damaged. Was it Simmons’ friend who had devised that one? Matt no longer remembered. In another moment it was slipped into his pocket, and he was walking away, now concentrating on the sound of the car Karen now had in park.

“You want me to listen to it through my earpiece, so you can concentrate on driving?” he asked as he got back in and turned on the laptop. “Or do you want to listen with me?”

“We should be able to get onto the highway pretty quickly,” she replied. “Once we’re there, let’s listen together.”


	6. Situation Assessment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Burlington.

Sharon had set things up very well for them to listen on the drive. The flash drive contained among other things a text file, arranged and typed so the screen reader could most conveniently recite it, and when they were on I-95 Matt opened it and they started learning a pretty good history of what Max Obderbrowski had been up to since had taken that name.

As Karen had previously heard, the Goldsmith had lived quietly for three years under his new name, mostly off the proceeds of his porn videos. Matt could only imagine just how much it burned Karen to learn how much money he was even today making off what he’d once had her do. It made him burn, he knew, and far too much. One thing he’d continually fantasized about had been somehow, when he was a lawyer, either forcing him to shut down all together, or to at least take the videos with her in them down. He knew the paperwork he’d made her sign had to have been airtight, and even the circumstances in which she’d done so wouldn’t get a court to do anything, but still he’d dreamed of it.

Sharon now believed he’d been induced back into his old life by a Hydra mole within the CIA. She wasn’t even sure whether he’d initially known the man, who was now dead of cancer, was either CIA or Hydra. None of them had found any evidence that he’d known the truth about who he’d been working with when S.H.I.E.L.D. had first taken him down. “If he doesn’t know now, though,” the screenreader recited to them, “then he’s a damn fool.”

They had known from the communications monitor that most of the Goldsmith’s current dealings were in the weapons trade rather than the drug one, which made sense, considering his clients. But Sharon had found patterns, locations and dates for when she was pretty sure someone at the CIA had enabled him to ship them, even made guesses as to where she thought it likely other ones had happened. He’d had a direct hand in dealings that stretched from Baltimore to Halifax. She’d included in the file a list of cities where she thought Hydra presence was still unusually strong. Burlington was among them. So were multiple other cities where the Goldsmith was active. New York City was among those, but Matt didn’t think much of that; it would’ve been more surprising if such a widespread affair hadn’t passed through the city multiple times.

She also provided the details of an aide to the governor who was definitely affiliated with the CIA, and probably also affiliated with Hydra. They were making their way through Pennsylvania and considering their options for where to stop and eat their lunch as they listened through the details about him. Name of Vernon Platzer. Forty-one years of age, white, native to Illinois. Had been in Burlinton for nine years, in various positions that gave him access to power without officially holding it. Along with his height of 5’7” and his weight of 155 pounds, Sharon also mentioned some permanent damage in the bones of his left wrist that Matt might be able to easily identify him by, although there was a photo on the flash drive as well.

Then the screen reader, neutral as ever, said, “For the past year, he has been dating a young woman named Pretzel Martin. She is twenty years old, and has more or less lived with him since she dropped out of the University of Vermont four months ago. I can confirm she has been in contact with Obderbrowski at least five times, meeting with him on the University campus, and that she has taken heroin. I advise you to remember, however, that Obderbrowski does not have nearly as much access to that drug as he used to, and I don’t think it likely he is keeping very many minions in line with it the way he once did.”

“He has enough for one, though,” said Karen, her voice dark and almost deadly. “We already have that much confirmed.”

“Would he use it on this, though?” asked Matt gently, pausing the screen reader. “On a girl he’d be using just to keep control of a CIA guy? He could do that just as easily with money and blackmail.”

“That probably wouldn’t be all she’s doing, then,” said Karen. “And if he doesn’t have as many as he used to, he might be making her do so much…”

When they listened through her physical description, her height and weight and long blonde hair, Karen commented, “Wow, just his type.” Matt thought he might have been able to hear her shudder even if his senses hadn’t been heightened.

She did so again when they finally pulled into a rest stop and ate their sandwiches, which also gave her an opportunity to look at the photos. “Are we sure he hasn’t started making new porn videos?” she asked. “She’s just the sort of kid he’d put in front of his cameras.”

“I’m sure Sharon checked for it,” said Matt.

Sharon had also provided them with Platzer’s anticipated schedule for the upcoming two weeks. They reached that shortly after they got back on the road. The governor was attending a high-profile charity event that Friday night. In front of the details Sharon had typed “HIGHLIGHT.” As the screen reader went on and on about the location and the guest list and the layout of the building, Matt knew Karen was putting it all together in her head same as he was. They were both coming to the same conclusion Sharon had: there was a good chance he would be doing clandestine work for the Goldsmith there. There were four names there Sharon had flagged. One of them was someone she was dead certain even handled the weapons, and it was even possible they might hide some in the building that night.

“So we’ve got three days to figure out how to get into that building, preferably into that party.” The former Matt was pretty sure they could do, though the latter might be trickier. “Although if they do have weapons, we won’t in position to steal most of them.”

“We need to get into phone range, then,” said Karen. “Take pictures, recordings…even if we’re not initially sure what to do with them, if we can just figure that part out afterwards, maybe even ask Sharon for advice…” It was a pity, of course, that they hadn’t been able to get their hands on any proper recording devices, and buying what was on the open market carried some risks of being noticed, but they could always use their phones.

There were other details and other things Sharon had written about; she really had been as thorough as possible. They had gotten off 95 and on the highway to Burlington before they were finally done listening. “Do you remember ever being in this part of the state?” Matt asked Karen after he had turned the laptop off. He could tell they were in a rural area, but that was all.

“If I was on this highway? It probably was something I’m trying to forget.”

A short while later they were surrounded by more people, and Matt was pretty sure they were in city limits even before Karen said, “All right, I’m about to get off the highway.” The car swerved as she took the exit; Matt noted with concern how fast her heart was going. Up the exit ramp, another turn, and then there were surrounded by buildings, city traffic going as its normal pace, pedestrians mere feet away from them. “Welcome to Burlington,” she said. “Back in 2010 Forbes called it one of the prettiest towns in America. I can try describing some of the more remarkable buildings to you if you want.”

“A lot of them are old, aren’t they?” asked Matt. “I can sort of smell that in the air, what they’re made of…” He breathed in deep. The air was not unpleasant. He could tell there were trees everywhere, both by the smells and by the sounds they were making. As they drove north, the sounds and smells of Lake Champlain too filled his senses.

“Pity we’re not going to drive past the cathedral on Allen Street. I’m not even sure what kind of brick it’s made of exactly, but it’s definitely old. I’ll take you to Christ the King Church tomorrow, though; that’ll be the closest place you can attend mass at, if we stay here long. You can even walk there.” Matt was grateful she’d looked that up; he’d been attending mass a lot more since S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, and it had gone a long way towards helping him get through these past months.

She named the roads as they turned on them; he painted the mental map in his head, sketching out the grid of streets as he tracked the cars that went down them. He had it pretty much committed to memory by the time Karen turned off the street and into a parking lot, and added, “And here we are. Goodness, Matt, I wish you could see this scenery. I know you know what’s there, but…”

“Yeah,” he agreed. It was especially a pity when the location of this apartment building had made this an expensive lease. But they knew the Goldsmith had at least two accomplices living in it, and they’d even managed to get an apartment two floors directly above theirs.

Matt tried to search their apartment out as they got the keys and started the process of moving in, letting Karen do the talking and lead him around. But doing that in a place he’d never been before was never easy, and the long hours in the car listening to the huge amount of information Sharon had provided them with had tired him out. He completely failed to get any idea of the apartment’s location until they were stepping into it for the first time, Karen describing it to him as they took a walk around. Even then, the people just below them had their TV on, loud enough to make it harder to listen further down, and Matt could hear nothing. He thought it likely their quarry weren’t at home.

He finally gave up in favor of concentrating on the task of getting all their things moved in. That took another couple of hours, but at last it was done. They made the bed last, and then collapsed upon it. Matt reached over and carelessly slapped the alarm clock, which informed them it was 7:41 P.M. He took a quick listen to both of their stomachs, and then said, “We need to eat. There’s got to be take-out we can send for, right?”

“Let me see,” said Karen, and fumbled about for her phone, trying to remember where they’d plugged them in. She found it and then settled against him, not protesting at all as one of his arms wrapped around her. Matt listened contentedly to the sound of her tapping out commands, and found himself fantasizing that this wasn’t just a temporary place in Burlington, but a permanent home in New York, where he knew she would stay. At least they’d turned their TV off downstairs, there was nothing below them now but some low chatter and someone vacuuming on the ground floor…

And then, the sound of a door closing, and a female voice saying, “We have to call him. He’ll probably find out anyway, since Pretzel was there, and it’s better if he hears it from us first.”

“If you insist,” said her male companion, who would be Oscar Alkawitz. “But you can be the one to call him.”

“So, Matt,” Karen started, “do you want Thai-” But Matt hastily cut her off with his finger to his lips, as down below, the woman, Alice Broom, as her name was, took out her phone and placed the call.

“Sir,” she said, bluntly, but even from two floors up Matt could hear the tiny tremble in her voice, “I need to talk to the Goldsmith. I need him to be on the phone to say this to him directly. It’s that kind of news. Thank you. Good evening, sir.” Matt strained, but he couldn’t tell what the Goldsmith way saying to her on the phone. He could sort of hear his voice, a low ominous murmur coming from the phone, but he talked too softly. “We just got back from a meeting with Mr. Platzer, and he now thinks someone from his own organization is onto him.”

Matt let out a little reaction to that, a little “Oh,” that he knew Karen understood the general gist of. Her heart pounded in response, although he also thought he heard her resume tapping her phone, maybe now getting them food without further input from him.

“I don’t think it’s true,” Broom said, and even without trying to get a listen on her heartbeat, Matt was pretty sure she was lying. The Goldsmith could probably tell too. “But he’s now refusing to bring the shipment in Friday night. At the very least, he wants the arrival place changed. Preferably to the other side of town, he said.” Something angry from the Goldsmith; Matt thought he heard the word _can’t_. “I know, sir. I’m hoping if we can vet the guest list, although believe me, sir, I know how hard that’s going to be in the limited time, we might be able to persuade him to let us go as planned.” The Goldsmith just got louder. Matt could hear phrases now: _two months planning this_ and _too much has slipped through our fingers_ and _he can answer to those motorcyclists following by ten hours or so all the way up from DC._

He breathed deep in and out to keep himself from reacting, to keep his concentration on the phone conversation. Broom was now discussing when she and Alkawitz next expected to meet with Platzer: the next day, around lunchtime, in the black café, which Matt was pretty sure was code. Still, Karen could drive around the area just to search for likely candidates after she took him to the church. He could even skip that and go with her.

Broom ended the call, and Alkawitz said, “You think they might clear the entire crowd out of DC? I heard whoever MacGregor and his crew were after have finally left town. They never got near them after they got away when S.H.I.E.L.D. went up, from what I understand.”

“Probably,” sighed Broom. “Even though just having the majority of them here is bad enough. That man’s insufferable, and so is that right-hand man of his, and they’re even worse when they’ve just failed at something. They’ll probably insist whoever their targets were are a lot more dangerous than they actually are. And if we then have to keep track of every last one of their thugs let loose in Burlington…”

They had already learned from one of their fellow former agents that the leader of that motorcycle gang was named Craig MacGregor, though Matt didn’t even need that to be pretty sure they were talking about him and Karen. That only confirmed that they’d both long thought. More alarming was the news that group might be in town. Although it was good, he supposed, that the two people they were spying on the most had no idea who they were.

He ended up not getting much more from Alkawitz and Broom then. It seemed they’d talked all they wanted to about their job, and soon descended into an argument about what to watch on TV. He told Karen what he had heard as she put her shoes on and prepared to go out to pick up their food. Her heels were shaky as she headed out of the building, so subtly Matt wasn’t sure even she realized it.

By the time she got back they were both starving. She’d gone with the Thai food, and for the first ten minutes they were too busy eating to talk. Then Matt, who'd had plenty of time to think about it by then, said, “I think it’s odd that we never even detected any sign of MacGregor and his motorcyclists trying to get to us again. I even listened to every motorcycle that came near my parents’ house whenever I was there; I heard nothing in the least suspicious. They never even tried to steal back the motorbike we stole from the police after they took it as evidence. Do you think they might not have been trying very hard?”

“Seems likely,” said Karen. “Although they did know a lot about who we were, more than necessarily always told. Then again, their boss might not have told them everything they know. If the Goldsmith’s been working with any of his old associates, even briefly, my name almost certainly made the gossip rounds. They might have even known who you were because you were the one who took me out. And I think it’s pretty clear already the Goldsmith is only working with Hydra, not for them. That might have kept them from seeing any S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, even me, from being that big a deal.”

Either way, it was obvious no one would be looking for them for a while. Unless they did something reckless. “Guess we can’t try to crash the actual party Friday,” he observed. “We’ll have to be careful even infiltrating the building.”

“We could try to scout it out first, though,” said Karen. “If nothing else, you could just walk slowly past it.”

“Thursday,” Matt decided. “We’ll go together, get an outside visual too at least.”

 

####  **Thursday**

 

He’d already memorized the specifics of the building, but Karen described it anyway when it first came into her view. “…fifteen floors, mostly glass and steel, from the looks of it.”

“From the sound of it, too,” he muttered to her. “Corridors thinner than usual, I think. Maybe larger corner offices.” Unfortunately the party itself was going to be held on the basement level. That was harder for Matt to map out. But it didn’t take him long to zero in and gauge the state of the building’s loading dock, and how many crates and such surrounded it. If activity in that area of the building went down Friday night, Matt thought one could keep contraband there for a least most of the night, maybe even a day or so, with minimal risk of discovery.

The elevators in the building weren’t well kept; he knew from the facts that they weren’t that old, but they moved like they were. The freight elevator, near the dock, was no exception. More suites in the building than usual were vacant, which was potentially useful for their quarry, but was definitely even more useful for them, even though more of them were on upper floors than not. When the wind picked up, Matt heard it move enough on the roof to conclude people probably went up there at least a few times a week, although no one was there right now.

They were walking past the entrance, and Matt knew they were there even before Karen confirmed it with a whisper, “Two of the men from that motorcycle gang. Turn around now.”

Neither said another word as they turned and walked the other way fast as they could manage without looking suspicious. “It’s all right,” Matt whispered back when they had the entire building between them and the bikers. “They’re absorbed in their conversation with each other. Irrelevant words you really don’t need to hear.” It embarrassed him, to put it mildly, to hear it himself. “They didn’t notice us.”

“Oh!” Karen’s attention was taking by a young woman walking past them, not paying attention to them. “Matt,” she whispered, “I think that’s Pretzel Martin.”

“He’s sending her to deal with those guys?” Matt felt sorry for her. Especially since he could smell opioids on her, and a lot of them.

“Typical enough of him,” she muttered back, and he squeezed her hand. This was a piece of luck, he reminded himself. They hadn't been able to locate the "black cafe," and Broom and Alkawitz hadn't said much that was of use to them since that first evening.

The comments the two men greeted her with were less than sweet. Her reaction to them wasn’t audible to Matt’s ears. “Listen up,” she said. “There’s been talk about the shipment. We’re still bringing it here tomorrow night, but we’re not doing it until eleven at least. And Vernon doesn’t want MacGregor here; he’s too familiar to too many authorities.”

“Well, baby,” one of the men growled, “Why doesn’t he come to us to tell us that himself? Why isn’t he going to talk to MacGregor, hmm? Is he that much of a pussy?” The way he purred that last word was sickening.

Pretzel still wasn’t reacting. She was reading to Matt as almost unnaturally disconnected from her surroundings. “He thinks it would be a bad idea to be spotted in where you usually are. We should meet in places like these as much as possible from now, though not in this particular place again.” Matt could hear the men bristling at that. “He tells me to remind you that if you are arrested and try to betray him, he knows important people who will make sure your claims are dismissed.” There was no telling, Matt supposed, whether that was true or not. He didn’t even try to determine whether or not she believed it; her heart was too unnaturally steady.

“Really?” scoffed the other man. “Maybe MacGregor might end up having a little message for him.”

“Call the number, then. You know which one. Good day.”

One of the two men was muttering things under his breath about maybe next time they wouldn’t let her go so easily, but they did this time. She walked back the way she had come, which meant past them again. Matt kept a tight hold of Karen’s hand. He knew she wanted to go to that girl right now, do something, anything, to get her out of her current situation. But now wasn’t the time; they both knew that. He listened to the easy click of the girl’s platforms and the desperate hiss of Karen trying to hold herself in and keep quiet. Her heart beat out a symphony of pain.

She wasn’t slowing down any, or otherwise acting like she was on the lookout for a car. Matt considered his options, then whispered, “Karen, if I leave you here, will you be all right?”

“Yes, I think so,” she said, and her heart was calming down. “I’ll just…stand here a while.”

He pressed a quick kiss to the side of her eye, the kind that always helped soothe her. Then he jumped onto the adjoining dumpster, and from there to the roof.

It was harder than he thought it would be; the part of his body that had been broken earlier in the year was definitely going to be sore later. It was a good thing his quarry wasn’t going very fast, so he didn’t have to either. Maybe he should have even brought Karen up here with him, but she probably wouldn’t have been of much help; the girl was walking way to close to the buildings for her to be able to see her.

She did start to slow down after a few blocks, but even then it was gradual, and more likely a sign of fatigue then anything else. From what he could tell, she was headed in the general direction of the water, although that would be quite a long walk.

But she finally did stop, and stand in front of a part of the building where Matt thought there had to be a door. Her heart and breathing quickened slightly, and he thought he heard her fists clenched.

The door opened, a male voice, “Hey, babe,” and the sound of kissing. Matt listened, and, yes, there was the damaged wrist, grinding away. He took a moment to really focus on the sound and commit it to memory.

They stepped inside. Matt settled himself down onto the roof as quietly as possible. They were taking the stairs up. “How’d it go?” asked Platzer.

“They were mad,” she said. She was trying to sound blasé, but not quite managing.

Her boyfriend noticed. “What did they say to you?” he asked. His voice was threatening, too much so.

“Oh,” she was trying to brush it off. “Just usual nonsense and threats. They wanted you to talk to them yourself.”

“What?!” Not as harmless a revelation as she’d no doubt been hoping, especially when Matt heard his fist hitting a wall. “What did you say to that?”

Her answer was only slightly stammered, but that spoke worlds to Matt. He heard her open a door, go into some room. Platzer’s footsteps as he followed her were too loud; so was his slamming the door behind him. “They’d better not call me just to insult me,” he growled. “They’d get us all caught, the idiots. Did you tell them that, at least?”

“I…I didn’t think of that.”

“You silly girl.” He whacked the table. “You all better not get me caught. I can make sure none of you ever set foot outside of a prison again. Now come over here and help me shred these.”

Matt listened for a little while longer, but there wasn’t any further real conversation between the two of them as the shredder-a cheap, portable one, he thought-worked away, just occasional further dark mutterings. Eventually he gave up, making his way down to the street, where he could ask passersby to tell him what the street signs said. Although before he walked out, he paused to listen to his phone messages. Karen had texted him to report she’d gotten a look at and photograph of the outside of the loading dock, and was headed back to the apartment.

He heard her there when, too much time later really, he walked into their building. On the way up he listened into the apartment below them. It sounded like Broom was out, and Alkawitz was watching a baseball game. By the time he stepped into the corridor, the smell of Karen’s lasagna was making his mouth water. He still wasn’t sure she’d ever cooked that for anyone outside him and his family.

“You going to call your mother tonight?” she asked as he came in. Her voice was a little tense; she was still rattled from the day’s events. “Tell her about the church, maybe?”

“Probably,” said Matt. “You want me to ask her any questions about how anyone’s doing?”

“It’s only been a couple of days,” she laughed, genuine for that moment. But he can pretty much hear her cheer drop as she bends down to examine how the lasagna’s coming. “Did you get anything?” she asked.

He related it all as calmly and as simply as he could. Even so, she was trembling a bit by the end. “I suppose the less they’re getting along, the better,” she commented.

Matt had to go over to her, then. “Is there anything…” he started.

“I don’t know,” she sighed. “Just…maybe stay here?”

When he cautiously placed his arms on either side of her, she leaned back and they kissed, slow and deep. They weren’t going to do more than this, tonight, Matt thought, but oh, Jesus, it felt good.


	7. Friday Night, Avoid the Lights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the party, and right after departing it.

In the end, the easiest way to get into the building was to do it during the day, dressed up in the business casual they’d stashed at the bottom of a suitcase specifically for this kind of purpose, and holding an accordion folder that looked like they contained sensitive and timely documents. They had to sign in and identify who they were there for, but fake names and signatures were easy enough, and the front desk didn’t go so far as to call anyone to verify that they were expecting them. They even went to the same floor as their supposed destination.

When the corridor was empty and Matt could be sure there were no cameras on them, they broke into the vacant suite at the end. In the immediate entrance to it they weren’t visible from any of the windows. The accordion folder had in fact contained food, enabling them to eat during the long wait, after which they took turns napping. Matt slept first, then stood watch as Karen did, as all around them, he listened to the building’s normal inhabitants head home, their workdays over, and then the first people started arriving for the party.

Karen too was awake by the time Matt identified the first of the four names Sharon had flagged on the guest list. Lubov Ashtovka was some sort of Russian businesswomen with too little history and proximity to an unsolved murder that had taken place in Berlin the previous year. According to Karen, her photo showed to be short and very expensively dressed, and Matt could hear some gold bracelets and earrings jangling on her. She seemed to be accompanied by a heavy-sounding man who called her “Madame Ashtovka,” and was talking a lot more than she was.

For the most part he couldn’t hear anything significant from them. Given the ridiculous amount of flattery he was pouring on her, there wasn’t much room for it. But then he heard him say, “Why, Mrs. Castillo! I would’ve thought you’d have come with Mr. Channing!” Katrina Castillo wasn’t one of the flagged names, but Jasper Channing was. He’d worked for Cybertek, a company recently linked to Hydra, from 2009 to 2013, though so far he hadn’t been linked to anything he could be charged for.

“He’s running a little late. I believe we haven’t been introduced, madam?” Introductions, and then a lot of general talk. What both women said about themselves matched what Sharon had had on them, which meant Ashtovka avoided saying much concrete.

In the process the man got identified too, as a certain Harrison Charles, a rich businessman who didn’t seem to have anything out of the ordinary on his record. The more Matt heard him talk, the more he suspected he didn’t have the imagination to be the kind of foe they were currently working against. He was probably boring the ladies with what might, in different hands, had been a pretty exciting tale about a business deal conducted in Athens, where some physical objects he declined to identify went missing about an hour before they were supposed to change hands. He managed to make even the crazy (and ultimately vain) chase around the city, with a group of people half of whom couldn’t speak English very well, sound dull.

Which was why Matt found it interesting that Ashtovka asked so many questions about it, and especially about one of his companions, a man named Orrick Stathos, who’d seemed to have a lot of ideas about where their stolen wares might be. Mrs. Castillo didn’t speak much during that conversation. There was more than one moment where he thought she might have even walked away from them without him realizing it.

They were making their way in with the other guests; the party was now well underway. Matt scanned the other people periodically, and another one of the flagged names arrived, but so far he didn’t seem to be saying or doing anything interesting, and nor did anyone else.

Although eventually even his trio started to move on to other topics. Meanwhile, Karen turned off the lights in the suite and risked a trip to the window, and came back to say, “I think it’s dark enough we can go down a few floors without anyone both spotting us and believing they saw what they thought they saw, if we move fast enough.”

It was only when he’d actually climbed out the window after her that Matt first felt the stab of his hip. He’d put it through plenty of workouts during the past couple of months, of course, but they had all been dictated by a chiropractor and conducted in controlled circumstances. Now, even as, on autopilot, he started scrambling down as fast as he could without a second’s hesitation, he was beset by a mad panic, a thought that he couldn’t do this anymore, a certainty that he was about to let Karen and everyone else down. The pain didn’t get worse, exactly, but it kept pulsing, like getting hit again and again.

It was a terrifying few minutes. Matt might have kept himself sane only by listening to the sounds of Karen scaling down the wall ahead of him. They were on the kind of wall where they didn’t even need rope, although Matt certainly would’ve liked to have it right then. Down to the first floor, and he stumbled through the window when he reached it, but then he was once again standing on the floor, his hip still aching but not to the point where it would seriously hinder him, and Karen said, “The loading dock looked undisturbed so far.” She paused as she looked at him. When he impatiently waved his hand, she asked, “Can you hear anyone there?”

Matt listened. “Not yet.” Then, down below, he heard Mrs. Castillo call, “Jasper! There you are!”

“Ah, Katrina.” Jasper Channing had a very suave voice. “Forgive me for taking so long. An old friend of ours called and kept me a little long.” Matt was concentrated enough to hear their heartbeats, which removed any doubt that this was code.

“I hope he doesn’t call again,” she said. Teasing, but suggested her sentiments were serious.

“I’m afraid it’s that kind of friend, Katrina. But ah, where are our manners? Allow me to introduce myself to your two friends here.”

Matt whispered everything he’d heard so far to Karen as they made the introductions. As he listened to both the words and the other telling sounds he could hear from Jasper Channing and Lubov Ashtovka, he found himself thinking it was unlikely they were in anything together. Their words had a barely concealed disinterest in each other, and what Matt could hear indicated it was genuine on his part, though he wasn’t sure about her; something was odd about her in general. The other flagged name still was saying and doing nothing interesting.

Vernon Platzer and Pretzel Martin also arrived, but Matt didn’t expect much out of them, at least not yet. He wouldn’t be surprised if Platzer refused to directly have anything to with or let his girlfriend directly have anything to do with what was scheduled tonight, especially once the governor arrived.

So when the group broke up, the other three perhaps fleeing another very boring story by Mr. Charles, Matt only vaguely tracked Ashtovka, focusing mainly on Channing and his companion. For a while the two of them said little to each other, even as they continued to keep company, greeting and talking to other people, their words not seeming to have any significance. The final flagged name arrived with a whole crowd of people, possibly hangers-on. He was the sort of man who would have that.

There were still people in some of the other offices. Luckily not within normal hearing range of the one the two of them were in. Nothing suspicious for the most part, just people working late. But it was a little past nine when he heard a phone ring down the hall, and a man answer, “Yes?” The person on the other side of the phone was talking too softly; Matt couldn’t make anything out. “Don’t worry about it, dear, I’ll handle it. I’ll get up and go right now. Love you.”

Sure enough, the man headed straight for the dock. Meanwhile, downstairs, Channing said just a little too loudly, “This room is getting stuffy. Want some fresh air, Katrina?” A moment later, Matt first heard the whir of the motorcycles near the building.

On their way out, they stopped near Platzer for a moment. “Hey,” he said, and Matt heard the rustle of a briefcase. “I know that annoying old lady is going to bother you sometime tonight, so you might as well give her this.”

By the time he’d finished telling Karen everything he’d just heard, he finished, “Outside are half a dozen men, all on motorcycles. Channing and Castillo are up on our floor, and headed for the dock. I think…” He focused in on the clank of metal. “Yeah, they’ve both got guns on them. They’ll be there within the next couple of minutes.”

Karen went to the door, and pushed it open a crack. “You want to follow them with me?” she whispered.

Matt considered it for a moment, then whispered back, “Yeah. I think a few more minutes and I should be able to tell if MacGregor shows up; I wouldn’t be surprised if he does.”

Once upon a time, Matt had driven the people who had designed their current footwear crazy by insisting it wasn’t completely silent. But at least he was the only person in the world who could hear their steps as they slipped out into the hall only moments before their quarry went through the door that led to the loading dock. When it was closed, he whispered to Karen: “The guy from upstairs has gone outside. From his trajectory, I’d say he’s going to meet the motorcyclists there.”

The two of them reached the door just as the motorcyclists pulled up, and Matt was already pretty sure MacGregor wasn’t among them, even before he heard one of the two men they’d heard Pretzel Martin talking to say, “You’re Platzer’s latest? Out of curiosity, is he even on the premises, or was he too chickenshit to even attend the party?”

“The governor would have questions for him if he found him not here. Can we get this over with? We’ll probably find another pair of interested parties at the dock, but hopefully they won’t slow us down too much.”

This news caused grumbling from more than one of the motorcyclists, but they all followed the upstairs man’s lead. Meanwhile, Matt had managed to mentally map out what was just beyond the door in front of them, especially noting the lack of light, if the lack of heat was any indication. “There’s another door before you reach the loading dock,” he whispered to Karen. “Left slightly open. I think you could try to get a peek through it with minimal risk.”

They had just closed the first door behind them when Matt heard footsteps in the hallway they’d just left. They sounded too heavy to be either Platzer or his girlfriend, though. Meanwhile, Karen reached the door, and apparently saw something worth having a picture of; he heard her take her phone out and tap in the commands.

“You two?” The lead motorcyclist apparently recognized Channing and Castillo. He didn’t sound very happy to see them.

“It has come to our attention,” said Mr. Channing, “that Mr. Platzer is currently dealing in the sales of two types of guns that I know of where he and I had a very specific agreement about selling within the States…”

“Neither of which are here tonight,” interrupted the impatient motorcyclist, “and I ain’t involved in what I don’t carry. You see how many fucks I have to give?!”

“Will these make you give more?” asked Mrs. Castillo, and she probably thought the drawing of the guns then as very dramatic.

But the man just laughed, and Matt didn’t hear anything off him to suggest that laugh was covering anything. Still, any kind of confrontation between these people worked to his and Karen’s advantage.

Besides, it did work on the upstairs man, as he promptly said, "No, thank you, I did not sign up for this. Good night." They heard him scurry out, apparently unhindered.

Except that the footsteps back in the corridor were slowing down in a way that suggested their owner was planning to go through the door. Also, he too had a gun on him, a very audible one. “Karen,” he whispered, “I think I should step out into the corridor to deal with someone. I’ll try to make this quick.”

“Do, please,” she responded, and without turning her head, reached her hand back towards his. He took it and squeezed it for a second before letting go.

One thing Matt had tried to carry on him during all missions throughout his career at S.H.I.E.L.D. was a piece of black cloth he could tie around the top of his head to make it hard for anyone to determine who he was afterwards unless they really paid attention to his mouth. Now he took it out of his shirt, and covered the top half of his face. He and Karen had dressed all in black already, and Matt hoped it made him look at least a little menacing.

He kept calm, stood up straight, and lowered and roughened his voice a little, as he stepped out and said, “Good evening, sir. Is there anything I can do for you?”

Metal clanked as the man halted; he had to have his gun drawn and pointed. Unfortunately he wasn’t quite close enough for Matt to just knock it out of his hand, and he wasn’t sure he could’ve done that quickly anyway. “Who are you?”

“I was about to ask the same, sir. My associates expected only certain people to be there, and you don’t look like any of them.” With at least two competing interests on that dock, he could hope that if word of this reached them, each would think he’d been working for the other. Also that none of them actually were expecting this man.

As he stepped up to the man, until he was close enough to more or less perceive the gun, he noted the argument at the dock was getting very loud. Also the motorcyclist was demanding to know if Mr. Channing was “Mr. Dilly.” Channing was denying it.

“Well, I got a word for them,” snapped the man. “Count yourself lucky I’d like you to deliver it; else I would’ve shot you already. Tell them I am from Mr. Platzer, and they’re not taking what’s on that dock anywhere tonight. He’s got a buyer who’ll come for them directly.”

That wasn’t a direct lie. Well, it was probably easier for him and Karen to do something about this contraband if it was left here instead of being moved around.

Except just then they heard Mrs. Castillo shout, “Get your hands off that, you ungrateful…” She was cut off by what sounded like a scuffle, which Matt’s companion probably couldn’t hear, but she’d been audible throughout the floor.

“Never mind…” the other man started, and Matt grabbed his gun and forced it upwards just in time for it to fire into the ceiling. Matt heard it lodge itself below the next floor as he forced the gun out of his opponent’s grip, letting it fly into a wall nearby. “You fool!” he hissed. “If they heard that downstairs…”

They’d definitely heard it in the loading dock. “What was that?” Matt heard the leader of the bikers demand. “You’ve brought some sort of goon with you, just in case we didn’t kowtow and leave without what we came here for? Too delicate to go doing your own dirty work, aren’t you?”

Dimly, Matt could also hear the clicking of a phone; Karen was getting pictures. But that sound was nearly drowned out by the frantic thudding of her heart. He stomped his foot twice, loud as he could, trying to make it look like him trying not to slip. She heard it and recognized the signal that he was unharmed; her heart calmed slightly. Only slightly, though.

It served more than one purpose. The man laughed, and Matt heard him drawing in breath to deliver a taunt. He took advantage, stomping again, this time on his opponent’s foot. The man flailed, but he still proved able to deliver a punch; Matt struggled to stay silent as pain flooded his lower face, though at least none of his teeth came out. He couldn’t quite keep his balance; the man had him against the wall. “You piece of…” Matt cut him off with a hard elbow and broke free.

He heard something rolling along in the floor in the dock, from the door, as if Karen had thrown it. Then he smelled distantly what it was releasing. The people in the door saw it, but they must have not seen where exactly it came from, because he heard Mrs. Castillo cry out, “You bastard!” He heard fast, heavy footsteps; the motorcyclist was running. “These people are crazy!” he heard him yell to his companions. Two thuds; had Mr. Channing and Mrs. Castillo passed out?

He had to break his attention away when his own foe came back at him, yanking his arm so roughly Matt felt the sharp pain of his muscles being pulled too far. He dealt a pair of fast blows with his other fist and a pair of kicks. He heard a couple of cracks when his foot made contact with a knee; he hadn’t broken it, but he had damaged it. But the other man pushed him back to disrupt his balance, then threw himself on top of him as he hit the floor too hard. Matt punched and kicked as best he could, but the man was heavy.

Karen was running into the now deserted dock. Matt hoped she could hold her breath long enough. Then, coming up from downstairs, he heard Vernon Platzer muttering, “He’d better not have forgotten and brought me up here for nothing…”

When his opponent tried to grab Matt’s mask and pull it off, in desperation Matt knocked his head against his. The pain combined with the one already in his jaw to send him near to full agony. But it worked; for a moment he recoiled, and Matt sprung free. It was time to get out of here the only way they could. He turned and ran back the way he’d come, to the loading dock, slamming the door to the corridor behind him a split second before Platzer entered it; Matt heard him swear.

He heard Karen pick what sounded like paper off the floor, then open one of the boxes and pull something light-sounding out as he took a deep breath, then ran into the dock. When she saw him, she tapped the side of her head in coded question; it rung too much in his ears, but he understood it. He shook his, and pointed to where he could feel the outside air; that was their best chance at getting out unseen now.

It should have been all right. The gas was almost dissipated; they were able to breathe in again before Matt even felt that uncomfortable. The two passed out people on the dock were going to stay that way for at least half an hour or so more. The motorcyclists were all on their bikes already, and would be gone by the time there would’ve been any chance of them seeing Matt and Karen in the darkness. Vernon Platzer was storming over to he who Matt was pretty sure was a man of his, and was unlikely to leave that hallway anytime soon. Not to mention the governor was now pretty much due to arrive, so when he did leave, it would have to be to go back downstairs.

They got out of the building with the motorcyclists driving away, and Matt didn’t think they were going to look back. They had this area mapped out, and Matt could hear which way they were going. In a moment, he’d start heading down the other way. The worst of his various pains were fading. A couple of minutes and they’d be able to talk, Karen could clarify for him what she was holding, and they could start figuring out a way to get it back to their apartment…

He heard the running up behind them of heels, and not the ones Mrs. Castillo had been wearing. For a moment he thought Lubov Astakhova, but then he smelt the opioids and recognized the breathing, as well as the rattle of the necklace she was wearing. It was Pretzel Martin.

“Vernon?” he heard her call a second later. “Vernon! Where are you? Please, the Goldsmith himself called me-” She came to an abrupt halt, and he knew she’d seen them. Karen knew too; he heard her turn around.

There was a moment of silence, and then Pretzel said, confused, “You’re Karina Silver. And you have that envelope Vernon gave Mr. Channing.” So that was what she’d picked up off the floor.

Also the Goldsmith was still watching the videos, and at least this minion had seen enough of them to identify Karen immediately. Now wasn’t the time to get angry, Matt reminded himself, but it was hard. Especially since having this girl here, smelling those drugs, and hearing that frightened, overwhelmed voice, brought him right back to that basement, and when the woman by his side had been that girl.

Before he could think past that, Karen said, “Come with us. We could do with talking to you.” Or at least with keeping her from telling her boyfriend about them. Winning her over to their side probably was the best way to do that. There was only one other way Matt could think of, and he sure wasn’t doing that one if they could at all help it.

“Why should I want to help you?” But of course it wasn’t that easy.

“Think about it, Ms. Martin,” he said. “Are you happy as you are right now? Living with an older man who I don’t think always treats you right…”

“If you just assumed he hits me…”

“I’m not saying I think he hits you, I’m saying I don’t think he always treats you right. Also, do you like doing everything the Goldsmith tells you to? I bet you’re afraid of him all the time, aren’t you? Do you like that?”

“Of course not,” she said, then shook her head so hard her hair whapped against her ears. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to help you.”

Except she was sauntering forward, presumably intending to deliver her message up close. Perhaps unconsciously giving them the chance, or maybe she simply hadn’t thought it through.

When she wasn’t even armed, or at all capable of hand to hand, it was ridiculously easy. Matt did it, mostly so Karen wouldn’t have to, grabbing her by the arms, keeping hold, and dodging her attempts to kick. “Come back with us,” he said. “I won’t hurt you if you agree to.”

“No way in Hell!” she screeched, too loud. She’d screamed further, Matt knew, and reluctantly he zeroed in on the spot of her skull that hitting wouldn’t permanent damage, got a fist free, and hit her just hard enough to knock her out. He thought it made both the pains in his head worse again.

“Come on,” he said, lifting her up. “Someone or other probably heard that and we need to be out of here right now.”

Into the night the two of them ran, Matt not finding it all hard to do so even with his burden. The girl weighed far too little, even beyond what he would’ve expected.

They kept to the shadows as much as they could, Karen leading through alleyways, Matt listening for deserted blocks. Two blocks in, and Pretzel’s phone buzzed in her pocket. Karen took a look, and said, “The Goldsmith has called Platzer. Wants to speak to him right now. The governor's just arrived, and he's made his excuses to him.” That news made both their hearts pound, but she said, “Well, at least we’ll have plenty of time to talk to her. He tells her not to wait up for him, and if the Goldsmith’s anything like he was, he won’t be back home for hours yet.”

At one point while waiting at one corner for a young couples to turn another, Karen tore the envelope open. Matt listen to the paper crinkle as she studied it, before saying, “This is in code. Maybe she’ll decode it for us?”

Pretzel started to stir as they approached their apartment building, and then stopped. Matt listened into the lobby, looking for the concierge, and smiled. “He’s on the phone. We stumble in, act drunk, he won’t look too closely.”

They entered the lobby with Pretzel, still not entirely awake, hanging between them as they leaned on each other, Karen carefully pressing her stolen item between herself and their captive to keep it mostly out of sight. “I can never take you anywhere,” Karen announced to the world with the perfect tone of drunken annoyance she’d used once before, during a mission in Halifax a very long time ago. “You always get some drunken woman who won’t leave us alone…”

“It’s not my fault,” Matt protested back. “We couldn't just leave her there, could we? And I swear, she’s just going on the couch to sleep it off, and the minute we can get someone to call out of her, they’re coming to pick her up.” He heard a little bit of movement at the desk; he thought the concierge glanced at them, but no more. No reaction from Karen, so obviously he wasn’t doing anything alarming.

“Well, next time,” Karen continued as they reached the elevator, “Don’t let any young woman follow you outside until we at least know…”

The elevator doors clicked shut, so she could stop talking then. “She’s almost fully awake,” Matt advised her. “I’m not sure how we’re going to get her down the hallway.”

“Hold on tight and move fast?”

But Pretzel made no attempt to escape them, even though Matt was dead certain she was fully awake by the time they reached their floor. She didn’t even say anything until they were in the apartment, when she said, “Torture doesn’t work, remember.” Sadly, she didn’t sound like she actually believed that, even in her voice, let alone her heartbeat.

“We’re not going to torture you, Ms. Martin,” said Matt. “We kind of feel like we shouldn’t have to, you see. In fact, Karen, can you tell me if she looks hungry?” As he asked, he reached out and touched her hand, nothing that looked deliberate.

But he could tell just from how Karen inhaled the message had taken: the answer to the question was absolutely yes. She might have even been able to hear the girl’s stomach growling herself. “You do look like you could do with something to eat. Let me put some leftovers in the microwave.” They’d been saving those for after the mission anyway, and they were pretty sure there was enough for three.

While it warmed up, she picked up the weapon, saying, “I think I’ll take this out of her reach. Could you help me carry it?”

It was as light as it had sounded; that was just as excuse for Matt to feel it directly. He’d noted mostly that it was made of metal and that it had a very hot power cell. Now, as he ran his hands around it, tapped his fingers slightly to listen to the echoes, he noted it was a bit clumsily put together around that cell, as if the manufacturer hadn’t been sure how to do such a thing. That implied dangerous experimental weaponry. Of course, he couldn’t say anything to Karen yet.

Except Pretzel then said, “I’ll tell you one thing, but only because I don’t want to get blown up. Be careful with that thing. I actually don’t know what’s in it, exactly, but I have been told very firmly it could destroy everything in here.”

Well, Matt, thought, that was a start. An alarming one, though not exactly a surprising one.


	8. A Trade Secret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt and Karen's interrogation of Pretzel is interrupted.

Pretzel had been hungry; she went to their tiny dining table without protest and when the food was put in front of her she ate it. They let her without asking her anything more, but when Karen had removed the dishes, Matt started by showing her the messages on her phone. Than he said, “So you won’t be missed for a while. But you’ve told us one thing so far. I think you’re smart enough to know that was a pretty big thing. I don’t know how many people know it, but you know, if only a few people do, and you’re unaccounted for a few hours, even if you weren’t missed during them, you’re going to be a suspect.”

“And believe me,” Karen added as she rejoined them, “We know how forgiving the Goldsmith is to those who spill his secrets. You need our help now.”

Pretzel squeezed her eyes shut tight enough for Matt to hear distinctly, and he smelled saline. “I can’t…it’s too late.”

“It’s not,” said Matt. “I’ve been studying the law a little. Someone like you? Can easily get a plea bargain, a place in witness protection, in exchange for testimony. You could bring this guy down, and the authorities will know it.” For a moment he entertained the thought it might genuinely be that simple. But no, he knew, Karen and he had work to do to make sure the authorities did the right and honest thing.

But she just whimpered in her throat, and the first tears trickled down. “Do they really? You don’t really know…to them, I’m just a no-good delinquent, wanting my damn smack so much I’m willing to…” She cut herself off, choked up.

Matt heard Karen place her hand on Pretzel’s head as she said, “The Goldsmith hasn’t changed his methods that much. I know exactly what it's like to be willing to do anything for a drug fix. You should’ve realized that, if you saw any of my later videos.”

“You were different…” Pretzel started, but suddenly, down below, Matt heard the whir of motorcycles in the parking lot. Not necessarily them, he reminded himself. But then, two floors below them, he also heard the buzzing of a pager, following by Alice Broom grumbling, “If something else has gone wrong tonight I don’t even want to…” and meanwhile, outside, Matt heard the familiar voice of Craig MacGregor saying, “Hope she responds before it starts raining out here, I just…” His phone went off, and the volume on it was so low Matt found himself getting down on the floor before he remembered Broom was closer to him anyway.

Karen had taken the piece of paper out, but now she stopped and asked, “Matt?”

Matt paused another moment, because now another voice was started to speak, one he hadn’t heard here in Burlington or back in DC, but one he thought he had heard all those years ago, the first time he’d come to Vermont. He wished Karen could hear it; she would’ve been sure. It was a gnarly voice, one he couldn’t make out all his words, though he thought he was saying something about a waste of time. It kept him down on the floor. “I….I think I hear…” he started.

“Ms. Broom,” MacGregor was saying into the phone. “We believe you and Mr. Alkawitz may be compromised. There’s a rumor going around the old blonde and the blind man from DC are in the city, and we have a report of two people who match their descriptions coming out of your building. We’re outside it right now, and we’re going to see if we can identify their car. It’ll probably be a rental. We also think it’s possible they might have tried to intervene in the pickup tonight. Platzer had a man knocked out and we can’t figure out who did it. There was also some craziness at the dock itself, although that might not have been them. They try to come back here, we’ll be waiting.”

Matt couldn’t keep the alarm off of his face, bad enough to get a reaction out of Karen, and Pretzel, too, began breathing quicker, clearly able to tell something was very wrong. But he couldn’t speak yet, because he had to concentrate to hear Broom’s soft-spoken response: “You want me to try to find them, if they’re in here right now? I’m pretty sure they’re not on our floor, but I can go on the other ones, figure out some reason to claim for why I’m looking for them.”

When he heard MacGregor agree, Matt said, “We need to get out of here if we can, and I’m not sure how to.”

“WHAT?!” Pretzel’s reaction was so loud Matt feared Broom might have heard it two flights down. Karen simply asked, “What’s the situation?”

When Matt had explained it, she said, “Okay, the car’s not an obvious rental. Maybe we’ll even be lucky and they’ll search for a DC license plate.” They had, of course, turned in the car they’d driven up from DC and rented another one. “Maybe we’ll be really lucky and assume we’re out when they don’t find it.”

“We can’t rely on that.” Downstairs, Broom was calling Alkawitz. He might keep her talking for a bit of time, but likely not too long. She would probably start with the floors right above and below them; that bought them a bit more time. It might even take a bit more to get someone on their floor both answering their door and willing to tell her where on it the two of them were. “We need to not be in this apartment before she gets up to this floor.”

“If she breaks in and finds the apartment empty,” asked Pretzel, “won’t everyone think you two have to be out?”

“Not necessarily,” said Matt. He didn’t know how much these people had studied his leaked profile and learned about his senses, though Broom downstairs was making no attempt to speak quietly as she talked with Alkawitz, even though she ought to have realized he might hear her.

“It’s worth a shot,” said Karen. “We go up to the roof and stay in the middle, no one should be able to see us from the ground.”

“And what if they look up there?” Pretzel protested.

“Have a better idea, Ms. Martin?” Matt responded. “I don’t.”

They gathered up all the cash they had on hand as well as their laptop and other electronics, and Karen re-secured their stolen weapon. Pretzel followed them up to the roof without protest, and they were up there before Broom had even left her apartment. “The motorcyclists are spread out,” he said. “It would be hard for us to get out without someone spotting us, at least right now. Maybe it’ll be better in a few hours, especially if it does rain. Which I definitely think it will likely do, by the way, but probably not hard enough to interfere with visibility.”

“And where will you go?” asked Pretzel. “You two aren’t coming with me.”

“We’ll figure that out. Meanwhile, we’ve got nothing better to do besides continue our conversation from downstairs.”

Karen barely needed the encouragement. “As I was about to say, I know you’ve probably done more than I did. But I know there’s a limit to how much you could have done, because the Goldsmith isn’t even doing as much as he used to. Also, I know how he views women, especially young ones. There are things he’d only rely on you for as a last resort. Plus I know a good deal about your boyfriend, who seems to me to be even worse in that regard.”

“Vernon doesn’t know all that I’ve done,” Pretzel said with a very bitter laugh. “For very good reason.” That, obviously, was the likely nature of some of the tasks he was in the dark about, but those might not be the most important ones. “Although he doesn’t even know where those weapons are bound, because he hasn’t needed to. Even I only know…” She stops for a moment, catching herself, then apparently decides to go all in, “know that they’re bound for some South American country. I also heard something about S.H.I.E.L.D. confiscating some sort of prototype.” They could try looking in the records for a likely culprit, but Matt had the feeling that might be more trouble than it was worth. They wouldn’t have the resources to do anything to them anyway.

Down below, Broom was going door to door on the floor right under hers, reciting some speech about old friends and how excited she was about seeing “Karina” again. His fists clenched. Just how many people had watched those videos? So far no one willing to talk had been able to tell Broom much.

“Do you know how they’re being taken that far?” Karen was continuing the interrogation. “The motorcyclists can’t take them that far, can they?”

“I don’t know if they’re even taking them through all of Burlington. I don’t know for sure who was supposed to get them tonight, but it might be the trucks of this furniture company we’ve got agents at.”

Matt had also been listening to MacGregor’s men reporting there were no rental cars in the parking lot, and him explaining what was going on to a couple members of the gang. “You trust this to Alice?” one of them asked, incredulously. “Do you know how much of a commotion that woman can make? If Murdock is in the building, there’s no way he won’t hear her.”

“I don’t think they’re in the building,” said MacGregor. “I’ve been thinking about who might have taken out Harville. Platzer described his wounds. It looks like they weren’t done with weapons, which the girl would’ve needed to knock him unconscious, so I think that was Murdock. If the car’s not here, I suppose that means the girl has to be with him, since his profile says the crazy senses don’t give him the ability to drive, and they haven’t gotten back yet. I think we’re probably going to end up setting up an ambush in their apartment.”

His overconfidence just might get the three of them out of this, Matt thought. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to go back to the apartment tonight,” he said. They knew of his and Karen’s abilities to fight; they’d pack the apartment with every man they could spare. The two of them would need a firm plan for dealing with that. “But we might be able to sneak out of the building.” When he repeated what MacGregor had said, Karen agreed. “Could you get us to these trucks?” she asked Pretzel.

“That’s actually a good idea,” said Pretzel. “I might even be able to get a ride back to my apartment from there. The men there won’t question my being there, especially not on a night where so much has gone wrong.”

“Maybe we should try an interrogation of them,” Matt said. “We don’t want either Platzer or the Goldsmith hearing a claim they authorized it, of course, but make it ambiguous who sent you and that might buy us as much time as we need. Ask the right questions, and we can learn a lot.”

He could tell by Pretzel’s reaction that this was something she really didn’t want to do, and nodded very slightly towards Karen. She might have been able to tell on her own anyway, and she said, “How much do you hate talking to those guys? I remember I always hated delivering messages, the way they would usually react. But I did feel better when I got to demand to know things, sometimes. It was an ugly satisfaction, seeing them frightened, but…of course, I usually got to do that when they were the ones who had screwed things up.” That was all perfectly true.

It had its effect. Meanwhile, down below, Broom was on their floor, and talking to the old lady three doors down, who was giving her the information she needed. She was also chattering on about a number of things, apparently unaffected by Broom’s attempts to cut her off. Matt took some satisfaction on their foe being aggravated, but the delay actually didn’t help them any. The sooner everyone was gathered in their apartment, leaving as few people outside as possible, the better.

Except it did give them more time to talk to Pretzel. “Ms. Martin,” Matt said to her. “What do you think about what’s happening here? What the Goldsmith’s doing?”

“Oh, of course I know that’s bad. I’m not…” She sighed. There was a moment where Matt truly was back in that basement. “And I know that if those weapons really are going to South America, they’re probably going to be used by some evil military dictator or something. But do you really think you can stop these people, just the two of you?”

“We can try,” said Matt. “And we’re not the only people in the world who are on a mission to take people like this down. None of the others who are may be chasing the Goldsmith at the moment, but with some solid evidence and words to the right people we can change that. But we need your help.”

Pretzel started to walk to the edge of the roof. “Careful,” Matt warned her, “you’ll be seen.” So she stopped, and just stood there, maybe trying to listen to the gang members below. They let her stew. Down below, Broom finally got away from the old lady and went straight to their door. As she banged on the door, heard no response, and got her tools out for breaking the lock (and that humming was definitely from something advanced), Matt kept himself calm, focused partly on Karen’s controlled breathing as she did the same, even as he relayed to her an account of what was going on. Broom did a quick search of the apartment, but they’d made sure there’d been no obvious signs of their having been there only half an hour ago. As they’d hoped, she immediately called up MacGregor and said, “They’re not here.”

But down below, MacGregor said, “I don’t like it. Why haven’t they come back here yet? No way they stayed at the party if it was Murdock who socked out Harville.”

“Maybe they’re worried about being tracked?” Broom suggested. “They could be driving around the city.”

“Or,” said MacGregor, “you might have made enough of a commotion that Murdock heard you, and they’ve fled to some other part of the building, and if that’s the case, he’s probably actively listening to everything we say right now, and it’s going to be hard to track them down.”

And then, Broom, “According that old lady, they haven’t really gotten to know the neighbors. The only place they’re likely to flee to would be the roof. I’ll do a quick check right now.”

He had to tell the two women immediately, of course. Even though Pretzel naturally panicked badly, her whimpers nearly drowned out by her heels as she staggered to and fro, and Karen hastily repeated Matt’s warning about being seen as Matt himself tried to size up the roof.

“The only structure on here is the entrance, right?” He tried to ask it of Karen quietly. When she confirmed it, he said, “All right. We need to keep Broom from seeing Ms. Martin no matter what. She sees either of us, we need to just get out of the building as fast as possible. Our best chance is probably to knock her out; they’ll wonder why she hasn’t called and eventually come up to find out, of course, but it still buys us time, especially if they start all converging on the apartment before they decide to investigate. Ms. Martin, hide behind the entrance. Karen, where do you think it would be best for the two of us to stand?”

Karen put them both in positions to either side of the building’s roof access as Pretzel crouched behind it. They were all in place barely in time before the doors swung open and Broom stepped out, the clanging of them behind her nearly drowning out her muttering to herself. She clearly didn’t believe she was going to find anything up here, and for a moment Matt wondered if they should just all retreat behind the shaft. But then Pretzel took the option away by whimpering, and a moment later Karen had whapped her on the back of the head with her bag.

Matt heard her kneel down to look over Broom as he himself concentrated on her vitals. When an anxious Pretzel asked, “You didn’t kill her, did you?” they were both able to say “No,” simultaneously. He turned his attention towards the motorcyclists. “They’re coming in,” he said. “We should go the minute they all get off the stairs.”

It was a lengthy wait. Not everyone even left the parking lot, but there were few enough that in the darkness Matt thought their chances pretty good. And then someone on the stairs with four other men, including MacGregor, “Why hasn’t Broom called you back? She must have gone to the roof and back by now.”

“I’ll call her,” said MacGregor. At least as he dialed they reached Matt and Karen’s floor, and so got off the stairwell.

There were still two men on that stairwell, but they couldn’t wait for them to clear it. As soon as he told Karen was what going on, she was grabbing Pretzel and pulling her through the entrance and down the stairs, Matt himself following. “Get her behind us,” Matt ordered. “One of those men will probably leave the stairwell before he notices us, but we have to keep the other one from seeing her. We can’t let him stay conscious for very long anyway; preferably not even long enough to yell about us.” He was already gauging the stairwell’s dimensions, the exact air pressure, and what the three of them had on them that could be used as a non-lethal projectile.

Both women ended up behind him as he set a calculated pace, Pretzel nearly pressed against his back. As he expected, the first man got off the stairwell on their floor, where MacGregor was still trying to get Broom to answer while making disparaging comments about her, but that wouldn’t hold for long. Most of the comments made by the men fanning about their apartment and taking in their things, and especially their obviously shared bed, were ones Matt would’ve preferred not to hear.

He tuned them out as the one man left on the stairs got closer, focusing on his exact speed, the exact location of his head, and the weight of his phone in his pocket. It would be unfortunate to break it, of course, but they didn’t have much else on hand that wasn't too heavy.

He waited until they were past the landing on their own floor, then whispered, “Stop.” Up above, MacGregor was ordering someone to go up to the roof. Thankfully he was headed for the stairs on the other side of the hallway, but they still didn’t have much time.

It was six seconds more, of footsteps coming closer, Pretzel sounding like she wasn’t far from going into hysterics, Karen too audibly getting more and more fearful, well as she continued to carry herself. Matt kept his hand in his pocket, tried to will it not to sweat too much.

Finally, with one motion of his arm, Matt pulled out the phone and threw it. His aim was perfect. He didn’t think the man even saw it coming before it hit him.

It would have been perfect, if him and the phone both clattering to the floor, not loud enough to be heard by any of MacGregor’s men, hadn’t been accompanying by Pretzel starting to utter a shriek which was.

She caught herself and stopped after two seconds, but the damage was done. There were at least enough, “What the hell was that?”s and “Who the hell was that?”s to make Matt certain no one had recognized her voice, but MacGregor was quickly barking an order to a Jameson to check that out.

He didn’t need to tell the two women to run; all three of them were already charging down the stairs, Matt pausing at one point just long enough to let Pretzel get ahead of him, though he didn’t think that would shield her from the eyes of those coming from above them that much.

Had it just been him and Karen, they probably would have had no problem escaping. Either Jameson would have come after them on his own and be easily dealt with, or he would’ve had to wait for reinforcements, which would’ve delayed him enough they would’ve gotten not only out of the building but far away from it and safely into the shadows of the night. But Pretzel, though she legged it faster than he would’ve thought, couldn’t quite run fast enough. They also had to worry about her being seen, but at least when Jameson came in, Matt was pretty sure from his instant inhale and yell that he had seen only his knocked out cohort. Up above, the man headed for the roof was nearly there, though that didn’t matter much anymore.

He briefly considered suggesting Pretzel leave the stairwell on one of the lower floors, and hope no one who would recognize her looked there. But it was too risky. Besides, Jameson wasn’t coming after them, waiting for the rest of the gang to come join him, and they were just a little slow and a little unorganized, bumping into each other when they tried to walk faster or run. Matt started to hope maybe they could outrun them after all, even after they reached the stairs and sounded like an avalanche coming down after them.

They reached the bottom of the stairs with them too close behind. “No one there, alarm’s disabled,” Matt said, gestured to the emergency exit there.

“Probably our two people here disabled it,” said Pretzel, which Matt too had figured already; they’d impressed him as the kind of minions who’d want an escape route only they knew about.

If their pursuers had been further up, they might have tried to just slip through and hope they charged right past it. But there wasn’t time; they had to bang through and just keep on running. “Too many cars,” whispered Karen as Matt’s ears told him the same. “There’s enough darkness in the street that if we could just get to the other side of it…though the parking lot’s pretty dark too.”

“Away from the building, then,” Matt whispered back. “This way-there are still some members of the gang milling about the back; they’re currently discussing whether they want to investigate the noise they just heard.

The three of them scurried to the far side of the parking lot, and they had just gotten Pretzel behind them when the emergency exit door was once again slammed open, and he felt the heat of light being shone in their faces. Only for a split second, but then he also heard the sounds of guns being readied, enough that some of their shots were sure to hit.

Before Matt could try to think of any way out of this, Karen did what, perhaps, was the only thing any of them could do. Pulling the experimental weapon from her bag, she pointed it at the crowd and fired.

More heat slapped their faces, electric charge as sharp, narrow laser fire burned the air it came into contact with. MacGregor had come to the forefront, and it was him the lasers reached. It happened so fast he himself might not have had time to feel it, but the way the deadly bolt tore his very molecules apart, blasted shards of him that cut the air before they evaporated, the sickening heat he left behind, those were things Matt knew he’d always remember. The complete change in scents, at least in the moment after, just made the whole thing feel more wrong.

The rest of the gang had come to a halt. The smell in the air did start to change a moment later, when it became filled with their terror.

He heard Karen swing the weapon slightly; it was loud when swung. She wasn’t in much less distress than those she was threatening, but her voice was steady as she said, “Get going.”

Most of them did immediately. The rest stayed frozen, as she and Matt backed further away, pushing Pretzel with them. She was close enough to Matt he would have known had there been light enough to illuminate her; there was none. But there was a brief break in the traffic upcoming; they would have make their run across the street then, and that would make their silhouettes very discernible, even if a stray light didn’t catch her then.

But one of the men still there yelled, “Are you pussies just going to let them run off?” Noone moved instantly, but the break in traffic had arrived, and Karen too knew they shouldn’t wait to see if anyone did spring into action; he could hear her already turning towards the road.

He grabbed Pretzel’s hand and nudged her just before he started running. Thankfully she understood, running alongside him, letting him guide her to the darkest parts of the street, not even asking how he was the one who knew where they were.

She couldn’t run as fast as them, and she nearly didn’t get off the street in time to avoid getting hit, one car almost reaching her in the split second before Matt outright grabbed her and they toppled back, avoiding falling only by some quick maneuvering of his feet. Karen was waiting for them, and she’d already scouted their new immediate surroundings as much as the darkness and her limited senses allowed her. Matt took her arm as they reached her, and without further prompting she led the both of them away, still walking fast, Matt keeping his ears peeled for the sounds of everyone in their general area.

He also was still listening to everything going on back in the parking lot, and after a few minutes he said, “They’re not going to follow. We’ve managed to scare them, and they’re going to regroup. We probably don’t have much time before it’ll be too dangerous to go after the men with the trucks, an hour at most. Then we go to ground immediately after. You go back home, Pretzel, and Karen and I will find a motel in another part of the city.” Although even as he said it, Matt was aware that if Pretzel decided she wanted to go home immediately, he no longer had the heart to talk her out of it, and there was no way Karen still did either.

But instead, she just said, “I’m not doing any longer interviews with them. Two or three questions, and that’s it. And you two better not even enter the garage.”

“We’ll hide ourselves nearby,” said Karen, as Matt nodded, honestly relieved that they would be doing no more than that. At this point, he was longing for an end to the night’s events, a chance to at least sit and preferably lay with Karen as they let the adrenaline crash and called themselves done until the morning.

Even though that itself would not be a restful experience. He wasn’t sure if either he or Karen were even going to be able to sleep at all in the limited hours the night had left, or even she’d want to, or if she wouldn’t think herself able to take it. She never coped well after killing, and he didn’t know if MacGregor’s death had been as ugly to see as it had been for him to perceive, but it couldn’t have been too pretty a one.


	9. Presumed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their foes make a mistaken assumption.

It was the wee hours in the morning when they finally reached the garage. Matt and Karen settled on another rooftop, although the streets were probably about as clear as they were ever going to get, especially with the rain starting, even if it was light so far. “Wish I’d through to grab the umbrella,” he commented to Karen. She said nothing, which he had unfortunately expected. He didn’t expect at this point she’d talk much until they were settled into the motel.

Pretzel lingered outside the garage for close to five minutes, but then she went in. She then sounded a little relieved as she called out, “Tommy! Didn’t think you’d be here tonight.”

“One of the other guys asked me to fill in for him,” said another voice, one which sounded like it belonged to a younger man. Then it added darkly, “I wonder if he was in league with Ashtovka, and that’s why.”

“Ashtovka?” Pretzel repeated, confused.

“What, didn’t you hear, girl?” asked a second voice. “Lubov Ashtovka the Russian tease of doom made off with the weapons! Nobody’s sure when she got them off the dock, but she must have been responsible for everything, including the gassing of the two people we were actually worried about.”

“Ashtovka’s worse,” said a third. “And the latest, at least according to Hunt, who called me just now? There are two former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents working with her, and they even know how to the use the weapons. Craig MacGregor’s dead at the hands of the artist formerly known as Karina Silver.”

“What happened?” asked Pretzel, probably not having to feign her shock. “I mean, I heard about what happened at the party…”

“It probably was her buddy Matt Murdock who knocked out Harville. Around that time was the last time anyone saw Ashtovka at the party; she must have fled the building with them. But when we found Channing and Castillo passed out at the loading dock, they found what looked like one of her cufflinks, and the weapons all gone. Meanwhile MacGregor and his boys went to where they thought Page and Murdock might be staying. They had one of those babies with them, and Page just shot him on sight, blasted him to shards, and I mean  _literally._  Must’ve been a terrible way to die. She and Murdock then fled into the night, and as they were running the other bikers saw they had someone with them. She’d ducked behind Murdock and they hadn’t spotted her before then. Didn’t get a good look, apparently, but it had to be Ashtovka; she’s small enough, and of course she’d be trying to go unspotted.”

“So nothing more is happening tonight, then?” She didn’t conceal her relief, although Matt supposed that could’ve had a number of explanations.

“Who knows?” Tommy. “You and me, Pretzel, we should've both just stayed up in Maine and spent our lives breeding lobsters. Why did we hop on that bus again? Yeah, I know you'd had that college to go to at the time, but..."

“I’m afraid your boyfriend’s not going to have a good night,” said the second voice. “The Goldsmith wasn’t happy with him even before Ashtovka’s fallen agents crashed the party, and now…”

“Will you be all right?” Tommy asked. “Want me to take you home? I won’t stay, obviously.” That “obviously” told Matt a lot, along with the fact that he hadn’t been in her company enough for Sharon to have taken note of him. The cold, calculating agent part of him was gauging the guy’s potential usefulness, and it might be considerable.

There was a pause while Pretzel considered it, but then she said, “No, you’ll just get yourself in trouble for leaving early again. I can get a cab.” Which she could, without it even appearing for Platzer to see on her credit card statement, because they’d equipped her with enough cash for a bribe, just in case she’d needed to do that here. Matt had the feeling they wouldn’t be seeing any of that money again. Karen would probably refuse to get mad at it. He wasn’t even himself at the moment, although that might have just been because the night’s events had worn him down.

He didn’t even feel anything as he related the entire conversation to Karen, and she said, equally emotionlessly, “She and Ashtovka have similar sizes and shapes. It makes sense they got them confused.”

Nor did he have much of a reaction when he heard Pretzel mutter to herself, “I am going home, now, Mr. Murdock, and Vernon better not be there when I arrive or I’ll tell him you made a pass at me.”

“Let her go,” said Karen, when he told her that part, which he’d pretty much been inclined to do anyway. “And don’t worry. There is absolutely no way Platzer will get home before she does, even if the cab takes a long time.”

 

**Shortly After**

 

Karen had already scouted out a motel for them, on their way to the garage, one he’d gotten a chance to take a scent of, and it had smelled clean enough. Unfortunately all their old assumed identities were leaked out to the internet, but for one night they could check in under their own with minimal risk. If Ashtovka really had run off with the weapons and was skipping town, the Goldsmith’s people might assume they’d leave with her, and even if they didn’t, they probably weren’t the priority tonight.

Matt let Karen shower first as he emailed Sharon using their set-up accounts. They had the impression she knew a lot more about Ashtovka than she had even told them, and they could hope she would be able to see to it that she was caught before those weapons reached their destination. He made it a long email, since he sent her more details about everything they’d learned so far. Even so, he finished it before Karen came out of the shower. He suspected she would have lingered in there a long time indeed if there hadn’t been the need to preserve some hot water for him.

When she finally did get out, he was pretty sure she hadn’t left much. Which was fine, because he didn’t linger at all, getting in and out within five minutes. Normally he showered longer, especially after a fight, but he didn’t want to leave Karen alone for too long.

She’d killed multiple people, of course, the day S.H.I.E.L.D. had fallen. But that day as a whole had been so awful for everyone that Matt wasn’t sure that in particular had had much practical effect on her when they’d cried themselves to sleep together that night. Before then, it had been eleven months. It had been on a mission where she’d been working with Irina Parkinson in Luxembourg, while he’d been on the other side of the continent in Slovakia on a different mission. Irina had texted him regularly afterwards. According to her, Karen hadn’t shown any “severe signs” of distress, but had just seemed dazed and sad for a week afterwards.

Of course, she literally hadn’t been able gauge Karen the way Matt did. Listening to her lie still on the bed as he dried off, he thought that to those who just looked with their eyes, she might well appear very placid. But even from the other room, her body was screaming at him. Her heart hadn’t been at rest the entire evening, and while it was slower than had been, it was still quickening its speed at irregular intervals, along with her breathing. She was also developing a cold sweat, and she’d definitely cried in the shower; the smell still filled the bathroom.

Outside the bathroom, Matt put his briefs back on, but didn’t bother with the rest yet. He’d probably put his black shirt back on before sleeping, if only because it felt much better against his skin than the sheets were likely to, but it could wait until then. When Karen shifted to look at him, he could hear only her panties moving against her skin. No arousal yet, though he wouldn’t have expected that this early in the crash. Nights like this she might later be either desperate for sex or cringe at the thought of it; there was no predicting which beforehand. He tried not to judge her over it.

For now, she just shifted up to him, close enough he could feel the change in air against his face when she blinked, but not touching. That usually meant she was feeling shame, which he actually wouldn’t have expected.

“I recognized one of the bikers,” she said. “Guy I always knew as Aaron. He was in the Goldsmith’s inner circle at one point, enough so that the Goldsmith once rewarded him with me off-camera. And he was a common partner in front of it.”

“I see,” said Matt, his heart trying to ride out the surge of rage without anything showing on the surface. No matter how many times Karen talked about such things to him, it was never absent.

Especially when she continued, “I thought I wouldn’t feel any of that pain anymore. And just being here in Burlington was fine. I didn’t feel anything about it, until I first saw that girl. And even then, it was fine, I knew I could handle it. Until I saw him. He wasn’t with them in DC. He’s gotten along in years enough I suppose maybe he doesn’t always travel with them. But he was there, when we left the building, and the way he looked at me. It felt like I’d never been anything but a…a…although he should’ve known I knew how to shoot a gun, even one that fires crazy blue lasers. I did that in front of him too.”

“Do you want to…” Matt started. No judgement on that either; he hoped she realized that. To be tempted was only human, after all.

“Oh, not now,” she said, with a pained little laugh. “Not for a while, so we’ll be fine so long as this mission doesn’t last for months. Which it can’t now anyway, can it? We’re never going to elude all these people for that long, and we don’t have backup anymore. I had to do it. We should know what that means, that it got to that point so quickly.”

There was much to talk about there, but this wasn’t the time for that kind of after action analysis. For now, Matt then, “Then don’t worry about him. He’s just another thug now, and sounds like one of their weaker ones at that.”

“So many of them,” Karen sighed. “So many…” She seemed lost in her thoughts, then, though her heart seemed to have become a little bit steadier. Matt focused in on it, a comfortingly loud thrum that reminds him that, at the very least, she was eventually going to be all right.

Even if, right now, the next words she said were, “There's still so much I've never told you, things I mostly told the psychologist about before I was worried she would blab-but there’s nothing about them in my leaked profile, so I guess she actually didn’t.”

“I’ve never read that profile,” said Matt. “I don’t ever intend to.” He kind of wished, for that reason alone, that Steve Rogers and his people had been just a little more selective on what they’d dumped into the public eye. He knew there were things in his own profile, things that had nothing to do with his superpowers, that it was hard to handle the world knowing.

Which was a large reason of why he said, “And if you’re ready to tell me those things, Karen, I’ll hear them and I won’t tell a soul. But don’t go telling me out of some belief that you’re wronging me by not doing so. I don’t care about that. Your mental health is more important, and I don’t want you to push yourself to do something you’re not ready for, for my sake.”

“What if it turns out to be mission critical? I mean, the things I’m talking about probably won’t, honestly, but…”

“We can worry about that bridge if we think we’re getting near it,” said Matt, because now wasn’t the time for that conversation either.

“I know, I know,” she said. “I’ve heard the drill before. Irina…” A pause, a heave of breath as she tried not to cry. “She repeated it to me. Twice. And I’m so tired, Matt. Since we started this, I’ve spent half the time being so tired and wanting to just drop the whole thing and walk away. Problem is, I’ve spent the other half terrified of the question of what I’m going to do when this is over. I don’t know if I’m even good for anything besides this.”

“There were plenty of things I’ve seen you excel at you weren’t good at when you started at the Academy. We’ve both of us got a lot to learn.” He had a vision, then, of Karen in law school with him, or maybe a little later, if it took her longer to get there. They could start up their own firm together. Maybe when this was over he’d suggest it. For now, he limited himself to, “I know you’ve never thought beyond a S.H.I.E.L.D. career. Life hasn’t suggested much else to you, has it? But there you just need time, and a chance to catch your breath. You’ll have that. I’ll help you however I can.”

“I know,” she said, but she sounded so sad. “I don’t know if I’ll sleep tonight or not.” He heard her turn away from him; she didn’t want to talk anymore.

She drifted off after about half an hour, maybe more out of exhaustion than anything else. When he was sure of that, Matt carefully pulled himself off the bed without a sound, not even letting the beads rattle as he picked his rosary off the bedside table. He kept one hand on the bed, just to be absolutely sure he wouldn’t bump into it, as he knelt to pray. He mouthed the words instead of speaking them. Half of them, after all, were for the woman who needed them, but also would need all the sleep she could get the next few days.

It didn’t make him feel much better, but at least Karen was still asleep when he crawled back into bed beside her, the sheets as uncomfortable as he’d feared, but he was now tired enough he was confident of his ability to fall asleep anyway.

 

**The Next Morning**

 

Matt woke up to the sound of the laptop humming on the bed and Karen’s fingers typing something; she was still next to him, but she was sitting up with the computer in front of her. He shifted, squirming away from cotton trying to press against his skin, and she murmured, “Morning. Sharon emailed us back about an hour ago. She’s anonymously alerted the authorities in Newport; she thinks Ashtovka is probably there. I’ve been monitoring the city’s newspapers; nothing so far. She’s also asked that we take a look at a property in Burlington she knows Ashtovka owns. She says she’ll understand if we can’t do it, of course, especially since she thinks the Goldsmith's people know about it. Unfortunately it’s an apartment on a high floor, so it won’t be easy for you to get much just by standing outside.”

“We could try anyway,” said Matt. “Take a quick walk past. Or I could alone. Buy a new shirt and a broad-rimmed hat and different sunglasses, and since we don’t have my cane anyway...” They’d had to leave it back in the apartment. At least those motorcyclists weren’t likely to bother doing anything to it. But it actually was harder to walk about without it, requiring a lot more concentration on his part.

“The earlier you do it, the better,” said Karen. “It’s a little past 7:30 right now. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of our friends from last night are only just now getting to bed, but if they know about Ashtovka’s apartment, someone will try to sneak into the place today.”

She stopped typing, and was still for a moment. Then she said, “She also wants to take the laser gun off of our hands, if we can get it to a certain location by about 5 PM on Monday. It’s in a box in an alleyway, so we should probably do that drop-off as close to the pickup time as possible. And she says she might be able to provide us with a bit more information about Platzer some time today, but she can’t promise anything. And that’s about it. You really want to stalk the apartment?”

“It’s probably not safe to go anywhere near our own for a few hours yet. Surely they won’t just assume that quickly that we *must* have left town.”

“No, they won’t, but I wish we had a better idea of their numbers. I could provide a guess as to when they’ll start to move people out of our apartment. They’ll take a lot of things, but hopefully they won’t view your sheets as worth the bother.” Matt thought briefly of everything they’d left behind, from his cane to practically all of the clothes she owned.

“Can you form any estimates at all?” he asked her. “If we can get in touch with Pretzel I suppose you could ask her.”

“I don’t want to put her in more danger than necessary,” said Karen, then paused for a long meant, before saying, “At the very least, I don’t think the Goldsmith can have fifty of his people in the city, and that includes the biker gang. That makes it unlikely they’ll keep more than a handful of people in the apartment at a time past today. We could get another hotel for the night.

Meanwhile,” she continued, after another pause, “I’m pretty sure the Goldsmith must be putting the motorcyclists up somewhere cheap. Those guys certainly aren’t native to Burlington, and, Aaron,” a painful hint of fear in her voice as she said his name, “he told me some things once. Said the gang had always liked to stay under the same roof when they were traveling, and always made sure everyone knew exactly where everyone else was. Of course the guy who was in charge at the time was a control freak.”

“Any ideas where in the city they might be?” Matt asked. “I can try to track them.”

“There are some possible candidates, at least if they haven’t been torn down since. I thought I might do a little investigation this morning, at least see which ones are still there. I don’t even need to go too near anywhere, certainly shouldn’t have to engage anyone.”

“Sounds like a plan.” If she could figure out exactly where they were, there would be plenty of opportunities for Matt to do further spying. “Pity this place doesn’t serve breakfast; guess we’re going to have to go out and into the open as soon as we want to eat.”

 

**Later That Morning**

 

Matt listened through one last text from Karen:  _Place on Kennedy Drive gone. The hotel they built in its place is scarier._ Then he turned the phone off; he couldn’t risk keeping it on when just down the block, there were far too many people in that apartment.

As he got closer, he was able to get more certain of the exact count: eleven heartbeats crowded into one of the building’s biggest set of rooms, the set that was in the right part of the building, and also, the voices in it were familiar. Six of them were ones he’d heard last night in his and Karen’s own apartment. A seventh sounded vaguely familiar; he thought he might have heard it at the party. The other four were new.

The apartment was in the back half of the building, and there weren’t very many people outside on the street at all. But it wasn’t always easy to tell who might be looking out the windows, so while Matt dragged his feet, he kept moving, trying to tell from the variations of temperature around him where he might at least be in the shadows. This wasn’t the best neighborhood for that, unfortunately.

At first the conversation he heard was almost entirely about Ashtovka, and a couple of other people Sharon had already mentioned as known associates of hers. But then, when one of the motorcyclists and one of the newcomers were in the middle of an argument about whether Orrick Stathos, whom she’d asked so many questions about at the party, was likely to be involved in this or not, an older sounding voice broke in: “Enough of this! We already know who helped her steal those weapons. We just don’t want to admit that those two people got the better of us.”

“Is it that shameful a thing?” asked one another one of the newcomers. “They are former agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., after all, their leaked records are pretty impressive, and they both have experience with the Goldsmith.”

“Experience isn’t exactly what I’d call it, boy,” growled the old man, and somehow, Matt knew immediately this was Aaron, even before he continued, “The Goldsmith owned Page back when I knew her; she’d spread her legs for whoever he wanted before he could even nod. Hardly surprising she’s doing it for Murdock now. Of course he’s kept her; she always was a useful pet. But if it was her who threw those grenades while he was otherwise occupied...we've had enough of being shown up by that little bitch.”

Matt had kept on walking, but now he nearly stumbled over his own feet, and it was suddenly harder to keep track of where everything around him was. This kind of rage always made him focus on the objects of it, even in moments where there was absolutely nothing he could do to them. The lack of his cane became a serious problem as he lurched forward, hoping absolutely no one was looking out their windows right now, or if they were, they wouldn’t bother about the drunk-looking guy about.

Meanwhile, another one of the bikers was saying, “Well, we won’t be anymore, will we? You think Ashtovka will send them back here, after they’ve been seen? They’ll stay out of our hair.”

“If,” said the second newcomer, “they’ve just become her henchmen. But reading both their profiles? I don’t believe that. They’re not the type to just do that, either of them. Murdock especially. One of my associates worked with him once. He described him as an idealistic man, how if he heard one heartbeat still in the area, however faint, even if he admitted they couldn’t get there in time, he’d still insist on trying to save them. But he was willing to get his hands dirty in certain ways, especially in the name of saving lives. And from what I have read about Page? I could see the two of them forming a temporary alliance with a woman like Ashtovka for their own supposedly justifying ends.

Also, they will be back. The other thing my associate said about Murdock is he’s a man who can’t leave anything alone.”

That man was probably Hydra, Matt thought. The associate…he didn’t even want to think about who the associate may have been; there were certainly multiple candidates.

“I suppose you have an idea about what to do about him,” sneered the second biker, clearly unimpressed.

“Considering his psychological profile, or at least what you can get about it from the leaked record? I think he’d be easy to lure into a trap. We just need bait. I suppose you’ll think Page, and if we could get her, she’d certainly be ideal. But remember she is a trained S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, with a very respectable record when it comes to combat. Whatever you think,” and Matt was pretty sure he was aiming those words at a skeptical-looking Aaron, “I would recommend we find someone else. Doesn’t even have to be someone Murdock’s even heard of up until now, if his history’s any indication. Could just be someone he can be brought to see as a victim that he has the opportunity to rescue.”

“Give that suggestion to the higher-ups, then,” said someone else, vaguely familiar.

“Oh, I will,” said the Hydra agent, with that tone of voice that indicated he was very confident his suggestion would be taken up. Matt suspected he was right about that, too.

That was situation they could turn to their advantage, of course. A trap could be sprung, if one knew it was a trap, and was willing to work with that situation. Although it was a little more dangerous in this case, because a Hydra agent was likely to make his own plans concerning the both of them, ones that no one would even learn the exact nature of until it was possibly too late. But really, a chance to potentially ensnare the Goldsmith and his minions in the act of committing a crime, depending on the nature of the baiting, of course, was a chance he and Karen were willing to take their risks for.

Especially, of course, if they had the bait secretly working with them. Pretzel would look to them like ideal bait, if she could just get herself noticed by them. They would especially hope Karen would want to save her.

If Pretzel was willing to cooperate with that. She would be putting herself at much greater risk, and she might balk. Matt was not willing to outright bully her into it, and was not sure Karen could even bear it if they did. But perhaps she might be willing to go through with it on the grounds that, if all went well, it would end with her going into federal hands and out of her current situation immediately.

The conversation had shifted; they were nearly done inspecting the apartment and would likely soon depart. Listening to their further conversation was no longer worth the risk of discovery. Matt went on his way.

When he turned the phone back on, it was to the news that Karen had checked another place out, which was still there, but she’d seen no sign of the men or their bikes anywhere, and it was a place where she would’ve expected that. Matt considered texting her, then decided this was a conversation they should have face to face.


	10. The Business of Traps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt and Karen raid their apartment.

“What’s the casualty rate for bait in cases of traps like this?” was the first thing Karen asked, when Matt had recounted everything and made his proposal. The two of them had retreated into a wooded area in Burlington City Park and settled down on some smooth ground when Matt had judged it unlikely anyone was going to come into earshot of them immediately. He was wondering if they could possibly even hide out and spend the night. The weather was okay for it, and it would be easy for them to detect and hide from any group of minions larger than they could manage together.

When Matt didn’t have an immediate answer to her question, she reached into their bag and he heard her turn the laptop on even before she pulled it out. “It’ll be online,” she said. “No way S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t keep track of it.”

“How much have we got left on that thing’s battery?” Matt asked, because it was now well into the afternoon, and he didn’t think it had been plugged in anywhere since morning.

But Karen took it the wrong way, practically growling, “We are not thwarting them at the cost of her life.” He heard her type something in. He was pretty sure she’d turned off the accessibility settings just as a safety measure while she’d been sneaking around, so he could only wait.

When she finally got the number she wanted, she sighed. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “It’s going to get more dangerous the longer we stay here.”

“It is,” he said. “For all three of us. Maybe for more people we don’t even know we’re endangering. People like Tommy.” That had always been the thing about missions that drove him the craziest, the collateral even he, with his extended perception, didn’t notice were vulnerable until it was too late. Karen had nearly been such collateral once during her first year with the Goldsmith, and she had strong feelings about it too.

“A lot of the ones where the bait didn’t survive were dealing with people far more worse than these relatively simple thugs,” Matt added. “Even the Hydra agents here probably aren’t too high up in that organization, especially now, when most of their leaders are dead, two of their big corporate fronts have been shut down, and those of them who haven’t been identified and arrested are probably in confusion and not sure who they’re answering to anymore.”

“They don’t care about Pretzel or the people who do,” Karen mused. “That’s both an advantage and a disadvantage, because if it all goes wrong, they won’t bother to kill her, but they’ll leave her there to die...email from Sharon.” A pause while she looked through it. “Well, she did get us some more information on Platzer. Apparently he’s made some enemies within the CIA.”

The idea that hit Matt was a little crazy, but, all things considered, probably the right thing to do. “We won’t be the only ones who’ll care, Karen,” he said, “because we won’t do this alone. We’ll ask Sharon if any of those enemies hate Platzer enough they’re willing to bring us help. Pretzel’s a valuable witness to anyone who wants to take the Goldsmith down, but she’s even more valuable against Platzer. We can get even one or two people here to be backup, and who really want her alive…”

“Backup.” That had been the magic word; Matt could tell just from the way her breathing changed. She was already typing her response. “Maybe we could enlist Tommy as well? Who is he, anyway?”

“We’ll find out,” said Matt, “and we will get his help. We’ll do everything we can, take every measure. Pretzel Martin won’t die if I can at all help it, Karen, I promise.” It would’ve been a little dangerous of a promise to make, if he hadn’t absolutely meant it.

And she knew when he meant promises, even if she couldn’t hear his heartbeat. “All right,” she breathed. “If we can have someone in this besides the three of us. And if we can get Pretzel herself to agree to it, of course. We need to figure out a way to meet back up with her. Might not be a bad idea to check what’s going on in our apartment. If we could even get back in long enough to pick up anything useful they haven’t made off with…”

Matt thought about that, about more of those bikers, and maybe now the Hydra people too, wandering around the space that had now spent days as theirs. The longer it was left in their control, the more he disliked that. He didn’t get attached to his living spaces too easily, if only because of his childhood experiences, but this was his and Karen’s life together available for the viewing. To even take control of it temporarily, much as it didn’t make a practical difference to all that, might still make him feel a lot better.

“We could subdue them more easily,” he mused out loud, “if we maybe lure one or two of them out of the apartment first. We don’t want to cause a commotion, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t want to cause a commotion even more, and we can use that to our advantage. Maybe disguise ourselves; I can do that very easily. The trouble will be getting them out our apartment without getting any of the neighbors out of theirs.”

“I…” Karen swallowed. “I might have an idea. It’ll require you to impersonate a thug, though.”

It had been a while since Matt had done that, but he was disturbingly good at it. He had found that when he lowered his voice, it tended to also go a little rough, and when he used it around someone who didn’t know him well enough, and was disguised enough, even if they’d met him before, they often didn’t identify him. He combined that with letting his more violent impulses swim a little closer to the surface, and he’d fooled many a foe.

Doing it had bothered him more on some missions than others. This one, he was pretty sure, would fall into the “bother him less” category. “What’s your idea?”

 

####  **That Evening**

 

Gathering information about the comings and goings from their apartment wasn’t too hard. Earlier in the week one of the friendlier neighbors had invited Karen in for coffee, so Matt and Karen walked in and up the stairs in concealing hoodies, then pulled them back just before she knocked on Kimberley’s door. A middle-aged woman who’d been widowed about four years, she happily took them in, though she scolded Karen a bit for not calling her ahead of time. With only a minimum of prompting, she started ranting about the rough-looking men that she was sure didn’t live in the complex but seemed to be coming in and out, visiting someone on their floor.

“I’m even considering going around to the neighbors just to see if I can find out who’s inviting them,” she said. “Normally I wouldn’t, but seriously, I think those men are criminals. You should’ve seen the tattoos on one of them. And the way another one of them had his hair. Surely most of us don’t want that sort coming up in here.”

“Well,” Matt said, “if they keep appearing for more than a week, I think we’d all have the right to ask questions. Maybe give it until then?”

They lingered freely over tea; they’d scheduled in plenty of time. But when it was a little past eight, Karen said, “Matt and I really should go, get ourselves something to eat.”

“Oh, you haven’t eaten yet?” Kimberly asked, in a tone of voice that precluded an unwanted dinner invitation.

“We had very specific plans for tonight,” she said, letting a little excitement slip into her voice. “Don’t think we have much time left.” They didn’t; the men would be more on their guard once the sun went down. Matt could already feel the building getting a little cooler from its retreat.

“Well, best be on your way, then,” said Kimberly. They didn’t entirely get away as fast as that. She kept them at her door for a hair-raising ten minutes, during which Matt was forced to try to look like he was paying attention, while keeping his focus on every move made and word spoken in their own apartment, ready to grab Karen and bolt should any of them start to open their door.

Then at last they were free, and Karen headed back for the stairwell, taking Matt’s glasses with her in a vague hope of actually preserving them, while Matt pulled his hoodie as far over his face as possible and headed for the door. Not much was going on inside the apartment. There were five men there, all of whom sounded like they were doing things on their phones.

He rapped hard, and in his harshest thug voice called out, “Are you Platzer’s men, in there?”

“That’s only you, Radish. The rest of us sure don’t work for him.”

“I don’t really work for him, either,” said a surly voice, but its owner got up and opened the door. He didn’t sound at all nervous. Matt could work with that.

“That’s fine,” he said. “I’ve still got a thing you might like to hear.” He dropped his voice further, so the other four couldn’t hear his words, and added, “Might be very much in your interest to hear.”

That worked perfectly; he audibly perked up, heart and all. He stepped outside, closing the door behind them. “What’s that?” he asked.

Matt put his finger to his lips. “Not here where anyone can see us,” he murmured, and gestured to the stairwell. Radish was going there before he could finish doing so.

Karen was impatient too; she sprung forward and hit him on the head before he’d even finished opening the door. But she did make sure to catch him before he hit the floor, and Matt helped her lay him down silently. Once they had carefully enclosed him on the landing, they touched hands, Karen tapped his, Matt nodded, and they ran back to the apartment entrance.

They got there just as two more of the men came up to the doorway. Matt surged ahead of Karen, landing blows on both of them. Not hard enough, and one of them only got a hit to his shoulder. Karen gave him a kick, only to suffer a blow from the other one. Matt managed to grab hold of his head and knocked it back into the wall, which took care of him, but was dangerously loud. Inside the other apartments, he heard too many people start, too many exclamations, and at least one person ask someone else, “Dear, do you think maybe one of us should go see what that was?”

The apartment door was still open. “Shove him,” Matt called to Karen, just loud enough for her to hear, as he himself caught the other man on the back with his leg, propelling him towards the door. Karen shoved him as he turned towards her, and all four of them went tumbling inside, then grabbed the door and slammed it shut. She even managed to whap their immediate opponent on the forehead with almost the same move of her arm.

The last two men were on them within another moment. Matt had still been holding the man he’d knocked out; now he threw his limp form at them. It hit them both, and they staggered back. Karen had started grappling with her current foe. Matt gave one last kick to his back as he propelled himself forward to take on the other two.

One of them had thought to pull his gun out, but Matt heard the sharpness with which the other turned to look at him, afraid of the neighbors’ reaction to a gunshot. It was all the hesitation he needed. He went for his wrist, disarming him with a hard squeeze. “I’ll get it, Matt,” he heard Karen murmur from where she was trying to keep her foe from breaking her, and he kicked it back towards her. As he dodged a pair of fists and brought his leg against four more of them, causing both men to lose their balance, he heard Karen’s opponent step on the gun; she had somehow gotten him to, and he too fell. He also heard his head hit the hard door as Karen swung them into it. She was going to have some nasty bruising along her sides, but he was the one left unconscious.

Once she was untangled from him-he’d had his hands on too much of her for mere combat to excuse, Matt thought angrily-and come to help him, the rest went quickly. They knocked the final one out with his own gun.

Karen first went back to the stairwell to retrieve the things they'd brought with them. She even plugged the laptop in; even a little bit more juice could make a big difference at this point. Then she was stalking through the apartment; he heard the rustling of her gathering two pieces of paper. “Too much to hope for they’d have much written, but we can grab their phones. It’ll be a headache to crack them without anyone’s help, though, if only we still had a-ah.”

She’d opened the closet door, and obviously found something. Matt could hear some humming coming from it too. “There’s a blueish cylinder in here. Why would they put such a thing in the apartment?”

“Probably not a good reason,” said Matt, coming to join her. “It might be a trap, if they thought we might come back here.” He doubted it could’ve been much of a danger to men who’d been here, though, since they hadn’t been at all nervous. So probably not a bomb. “I can’t hear anything besides a general hum.”

“If they meant it as a trap, they might have deliberately gone with something you couldn’t tell too much about.”

“They’d have had to have done a lot of research about me to know exactly what I could and couldn’t hear.” Still, Matt’s gut was telling him very firmly that Karen was on the right track. “In any case, maybe we’d just better leave it untouched. We’ll have enough electronics to deal with if we take the phones anyway.”

They relieved the men of their phones as they were starting to wake up, meaning they had to knock them out again. Karen did the man who had groped her, which was only fair, and also possibly safer. “I hope Sharon’s right about the trackers probably being disabled,” she said; according to Sharon Carter, the Goldsmith always ordered his minions to not let anyone track their phones.

One of their two hidden stashes of cash had been found and was gone, but they retrieved the other one. Taking the blanket was actually an easy thing to do, because they could roll all the small things they’d pilfered into it. There wasn’t much else left behind to grab, but they had left the cane. Matt took that as he listened in, until he could say, “Next shift’s here. Four men coming up on the right stairwell. We’ll take the left.”

A few minutes later saw them walking out, Matt now putting his cane to use and letting Karen guide him as he held onto her arm, which made it easy to concentrate on the reactions of the new men to their downed colleagues. They surmised what had happened faster than he would’ve liked, but that was only to be expected. When they realized there was someone missing, one of them went out to look for him. Another said, “The closet. I think there was something in there?”

They went to look and found it still there. A young voice asked, “Dude, what is that?” Two very sincere-sounding responses indicated none of them knew. Though Matt was having more trouble hearing them, because they were getting some way away, and more people in the apartment building than usual had their televisions on.

“You want to go back to the park?” he ventured. “We probably won’t be found there, and the blanket should keep us warm if we share body heat.” He briefly wondered if he should’ve presumed they’d do that, but really, it had been months since they’d slept apart. He was starting to forget what it was like to do so.

“That should be a crazy idea,” said Karen. “But yes, I kind of want to.”

 

####  **Very Early the Next Morning**

 

The footsteps were too close when Matt woke up to hear them. As he first became aware of the sound of them, he noticed they were hesitant and careful, as if the person was trying not to step on any leafs, but she sounded about as noisy as anyone walking in the wooded area would’ve to him.

Thankfully even as he gently shook Karen awake he also recognized the scent, opioids and all. “Pretzel’s coming,” he whispered to her. Though even she knowing where they were wasn’t good news.

They’d pulled themselves up and brushed a little bit of dirt off when she got close enough to say, “Did you two really think all those guys were going to turn their phone trackers off? They're too arrogant for that. One of them didn’t.”

“And he’s going to allow the Goldsmith to know that?” Karen asked, sounding like she couldn’t believe that part of it.

“I don’t think anyone who knows so far wants him to find out, but anyway, you two are lucky I got here first. Let me see the phones; I might be able to identify which one is his.”

She looked them over, then said, “This one,” and tossed it to the ground. “Do you even have a plan for breaking into the other ones?”

“Haven’t had time for that yet,” said Matt, picking up his cane. Once again he took Karen’s arm, as he extended his senses. Pretzel really had outrun everyone. There were more people in the park than he’d expect when air temperature made clear how far before dawn it was, but none they couldn’t easily avoid. No one familiar; perhaps they’d deliberately sent people he wouldn’t identify from a distance.

Trying to better pinpoint their locations distracted him enough he didn’t realize Pretzel was going to grab him until he flinched at her grip. “Listen,” she growled. “If I get killed for this, I’m not going down alone.”

“You’re not getting killed for this,” said Karen.

“We’re trying to get this over first,” Matt added. “Which of course you can help us with. We’ll get out of this park and then get you up to date. Although if you can think of anyone who can help us with the phones before then, we’ll be glad to hear it.” He could tell by her breath in response that she could. “There’s no one within my hearing range northeast of us.”

They couldn’t really keep quiet, especially since Matt couldn’t always tell what was right below his feet until he’d already stepped on it. But the sounds weren’t carrying too far, and no one around them was moving very fast. The man nearest to them was muttering darkly to himself about how little this was worth, and they were never going to get there at the same time.

They didn’t. They were out of the wooded area and nearly out of the park when Matt heard the reaction of the man who found the abandoned phone. He listened to him yell out the news to anyone within normal hearing range as the air filled with the promising smells of a nearby diner, and smiled as he said, “Think we could risk stopping for breakfast?”

“If we do so at crowded enough a place,” said Karen, and Pretzel voiced her agreement. Matt was a little sorry for that, for more than one reason. Which Karen knew, and she leaned in and whispered, “We’ll find the quietest corner, obviously.”

The diner they walked into was a bit louder and a lot smellier than Matt liked. But the food, though potentially fattening, was relatively inoffensive, and it had been a while since he and Karen had eaten anything substantial. Long enough that they both ended up eating voraciously and letting Pretzel talk first. She had no idea how to tell a story or get to a point, but they managed to learn from her that Astakhova and her stolen weapons had vanished off the radar completely, the Goldsmith was possibly angry at everyone, a lot of the people involved who weren't Hydra were very unhappy at having to work with those who were, and if the two of them managed to get through this day uncaptured, they’d probably go with the plan of laying a trap for them.

When told of what they’d been thinking, her heart certainly pounded in protest. But he was pretty sure she was putting on a show of devil-may-care as she said, “Well, I think I’m pretty much fucked now if we don’t do this. I mean, maybe no one’s figured out I’ve met with you two yet, but sooner or later’s someone’s going to put the pieces together. So, fine, okay, I’ll be your bait. But, well, do you need any of the information you tried to get out of your apartment last night, now? Maybe you should just ditch all of those phones?”

She’d spoken it way too hastily; Matt would’ve been suspicious even without the extra information his ears could gather. “Actually, I think those phones are our best chances of information, knowing exactly who’s communicating with whom. And you do know someone, don’t you? Someone you’re trying to protect?”

When Pretzel’s only response was her hammering heart, he asked, very gently, “Tommy?”

“No, not him, his friend.” She sighed. “Well, except that if CJ gets connected to you two, they’ll think Tommy must have been involved, even if for some reason I get left out of it. The two of them have been in each other’s pockets from about the time we first arrived in Burlington, before any of the three of us got involved in any of this. But he’d be through those phones in a heartbeat, and if Tommy asked him to do it, I’m sure he would do it.”

“So we have to persuade Tommy,” said Matt.

“That won’t be easy,” said Pretzel. “And no, before you ask, he’s not in love with me. We’ve known each other since we were three.” She believed it as she said it, and Matt supposed she might well be right.

“But he cares about you very deeply,” said Karen.

“And I care about him,” she said, her voice turning sharp. “You shouldn’t get him killed either. Or CJ.”

“We won’t,” said Matt, and his head formed the plan even as he spoke it: “If you can tell me where to find Tommy, I’ll talk to him. Meanwhile, we’ve got a friend who now works for the CIA. Give us the full names to these two men, we’ll pass them on to her, and she’ll see what she can do for them; we’ll get all three of you out if we can. They’re nobody major, right?” Sharon Carter hadn’t mentioned any CJs in her notes either, so he couldn’t be.

“No,” said Pretzel. “And all right, I’ll give you his address. Then I gotta go; if I don’t get back with groceries within half an hour of Vernon coming home he could get suspicious.”

“One more thing,” said Karen, as she got up, apparently thinking it perfectly fine to stick them with the check. “Do you think it would be safe for us to take refuge in a church today?”

“So long as it’s not one anyone who knows what you look like are attending, probably,” she called back, already hurrying out.

“You want to come with me to mass?” Matt asked. He was deeply grateful she’d asked, but he didn’t want her pressured to attend, especially not when they were within the realm of her younger years.

“I think it might be good for me, actually,” she said. “Just don’t ask me to go anywhere near a Baptist service.” She pulled out one of their remaining phones and clicked on it, obviously just to look at the time. “It’s probably too early to go waking her friend up anyway. You sure you want to talk to him? I suppose he’s not as bad as plenty of these boys, but…”

“Yes,” said Matt. “I think it won’t be too hard to persuade him.”

“If you say so,” said Karen, and Matt was relieved she hadn’t pressed him any further. It wasn’t that he would’ve minded her knowing exactly why he felt he could talk to that boy, if he was right about him. On the contrary, it would have been better if he could let her know. But he’d never have the words to explain that even if his witnessing Karen’s actually suffering what Pretzel was currently suffering had been very brief, he still understood the feeling of helpless anger and the willingness to take any action that it was suggested he could take.

“I was in this part of the city, yesterday,” said Karen, as they paid the bill. “There’s a Catholic church only a couple of blocks from here. Even a café right next to it with free wifi. I can email Sharon and then take refuge, at least if they don’t kick me out.”

“They’d better not,” was all Matt would say to that.

As they left the diner, he gave up trying to listen to Pretzel, who had found a bus stop and was waiting in silence, and scanned for the sound of anyone else familiar. Only one of the men he’d heard in the park was still within his hearing range, and he sounded like he was going the wrong way. Still, there was a good chance someone had gone for backup, possibly making a call when they believed he wouldn’t be able to hear them.

But there was no one in the least bit familiar around them as they joined the crowd going in. At least these weren’t the kind of mobsters who hypocritically attended church. Matt had dealt with those kind of men before on one occasion, and decided then there were few kinds of people he disliked more.


	11. Finding Allies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt and Karen meet with Tommy and CJ, and a plan is formed.

Tommy technically lived outside Burlington, in the city known instead as South Burlington. It was a longer trip from the church than Matt would’ve liked, and by the time he was knocking on his door, it was after lunch. Tommy had eaten a spicy one; he did not find the smell pleasant.

When Matt first rang his doorbell, his initial reaction was just an annoyed mutter. But Matt knew the instant he looked through the peephole, and that he’d been recognized. “I want to talk about Pretzel,” he called through the door. “She’s going to need your help.”

“Oh, wonderful,” Tommy sighed, though at least he sounded less frightened, and he opened the door. “Get in, and if you try anything, I have a knife on me.” Matt had smelled the metal already, but didn’t say anything.

He decline an offer of a drink, causing Tommy to growl, “You think I’d spike it?”

“I’d be able to tell if you did,” Matt said coolly. “I just don’t want to drink anything right now, especially since I’ve got a bit to explain to you, and not much time, so we should just sit down.”

Tommy did so without further protest, and listened as Matt explained the situation to him as quickly as he could. When he’d finished, he said, “These days, I wish I hadn’t followed her here.”

“But you’re here now,” said Matt. “And I can tell you want to save her.” He genuinely could too; the man wasn’t hard to read at all.

“Do you really think…” Tommy started.

“I know you care for her, and that’s all I need to know. The rest isn’t important right now, not for either of us.”

“There are a lot of things that aren’t important to you,” was Tommy’s response. “Like all three of us.”

“Not true,” said Matt.

“So you’re going to claim you care so much about three random criminals in trouble?” He would never believe that.

But Matt could just reply, “No, because Pretzel is not random to me, because she’s not random to Karen.”

“Oh?” Tommy was to try to scoff. Matt had heard more successful. “Don’t tell me. She’s seeing herself in Pretzel, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she is, and honestly, if anything happened to Pretzel? I don’t know if she’d ever get over it. And anything that would do that to her, Tommy, I would do  _anything_  to prevent. You don’t have to appreciate my essentially selfish reasons, you don’t have be impressed with me at all, and you don’t have to like me, but I think you should believe me when I say that.”

“I do,” Tommy sounded surprised as he said it, but his heartbeat was steady.

“So,” said Matt. “We need to work together to get Pretzel out. I think if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll recognize she needed out even before Karen and I entered the picture.”

“Yeah,” said Tommy, he’d obviously had thoughts along those lines already. “Do you have any actual plans right now besides break into the phones and go from there?”

“We have to drop the high-tech weapon off at a certainly place tomorrow,” said Matt. “Our CIA contact asked us to do that. Other than that, we’re still reacting to events. Remember we’re not the ones laying the trap. I know that’s not easy to cope with, having to be reactive rather than active-”

“Oh, is that what fancy language you’re going to use to justify that you don’t have a plan?”

“We do have a plan,” Matt dropped his voice, let a little bit of the ice in; he didn’t have much patience at the moment. “The plan is not set up to comply with what your idea of a plan is; it is set up to give us the greatest chance at succeeding. Let me remind you that we are much more experienced than you in this sort of thing.”

“Are you really?” Tommy hadn’t been unaffected, but he was trying to hide that; he might have succeeded had Matt been able to hear only his voice. “You’re used to working for an organization, same as me and CJ. You’re not used to running and fumbling around without one. Don’t you go acting all high and mighty. Doesn’t that get people killed?”

Show no weakness, Matt knew. So he gave no indication of how Tommy’s words struck him, only increasing the ice as he said, “We’re used to being out in the field and making our own calls all the time. Your best chance of getting what you want is still to do as I say, and you ought to realize that.”

It won the argument; Tommy took another moment to admit it, but then sighed, “I can probably safely call CJ after 2. I know where your church is, and the two of us could probably get there between 4:30 and 5. We could even try to bring Pretzel with us, but that would be a lot riskier for more than one reason. I can contact her afterwards; Platzer won’t have to know.” He was more firm with those final words, and Matt believed he’d make sure he didn’t.

He was back in the bus and making his slow way back when Karen called, “Sharon’s emailed me back,” she said. “She says there’ll be backup arriving in Burlington tomorrow night, but that she can’t control the exact time of their arrival, and they might even show up in the middle of the fight.”

“You willing to go through with this anyway?” he asked. “We could call it off; even leave the city and make them aware of it, or just try to make them think we’ve left.”

A pause; she was definitely tempted. But then she said, “We’re committed to this, and there’s no way we can avoid endangering all three of them now.” There was a little guilt there, but more than that, she sounded resolute. Matt couldn’t quite get her heartbeat through the phone line, but he thought he knew what it sounded like anyway.

 

####  **Later That Afternoon**

 

Karen sat with the laptop and their other things in one of the back pews, rereading Sharon Carter’s latest missive, when Matt first climbed into the confessional and made the sign of the cross. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been a week and four days since my last confession.” That was the one where the fornication with Karen had been his biggest thing to confess. The priest he’d regularly confessed to in D.C. had urged him to propose when he’d finished confessing more than once.

This was a different man, of course. One who had heard many confessions already that day, but might have still been a little stunned when Matt had finished giving the one he had to give. Matt couldn’t be sure what his response would be. He’d run into a lot of priests who would refuse to be phased at all and just go through the rest of the rite, sometimes with a clear wish to just get him out of there, but also those who would urge him to turn away from his evil organization. At least none of them had ever broken the seal of confession as far as he knew.

This one, apparently, decided to start with his final admission, the one newly in his head thanks to what Tommy had said. “You seem pretty unsure about your motivations, whether they were out of pride or not.”

“Well, I only realized how arrogant a thing this was to do this afternoon. I don’t think Karen’s thought about it, but, well, she’s the one this guy hurt so badly. I mean, that’s a lot more understandable on her part. I…I don’t have that excuse.”

“You’ve just confessed to a good deal of rage yourself on her behalf.”

“And I know that’s not even entirely my place, you know. The Goldsmith told Karen for years that he was her protection. She hasn’t wanted to be anyone’s to protect since then.”

“Doesn’t mean she can’t do with the help, does it? You two are certainly involved in a dangerous game, and you’ve said you have to play it out, and your reasoning is such I can’t even urge you to reconsider.” He sounded regretful over that. Matt would’ve been sad if he hadn’t.

“And when that’s over?” Matt asked.

“I can give you penance to do, of course. But you are talking about things where you both must find your way for yourself.”

The timing was pretty good. As Matt left the confessional, he could hear Tommy outside, accompanied by another male voice he hoped was CJ, both of them talking low. “…wouldn’t even be considering this if it wasn’t for you,” he heard the new voice say.

“It’s only for a couple of days.” That was Tommy’s voice. “Then we’re out of danger, one way or another.”

“Those potential ways including us being dead or in prison.”

“Look, the asshole’s right. I can’t leave Pretzel where she is right now. Especially since I really think if this goes on much longer, the Goldsmith will turn her into his next Karina Silver. There’s a reason I made you watch that video, and we both know it wasn’t exactly to turn you on, was it?”

“No, of course not.” There was a hard sort of humor to CJ’s voice, but it softened as he said, “I do want to help her, though. I like her, you know, I really do.”

“Let’s all three of us get out of here together, then,” said Tommy. “You could come with us back to Maine.”

“No, if we’re going, we’re going south,” said CJ. “Didn’t you say you two wanted to get somewhere warm? Let’s go to Florida.”

“Florida sounds nice,” Tommy sighed. Matt could hear their steps slow down as they approached the church entrance. “You gotta let go of me, CJ. There are priests in there, and according to Murdock’s leaked profile, he was raised very Catholic.”

Well, that made the situation a bit clearer. It seemed Tommy really wasn’t in love with Pretzel, though that probably didn’t matter too much right now. It stung, though, to hear them assume he’d be judgmental. He wasn’t of others, whatever issues he’d had of parts of him he’d never really dealt with, and certainly never acted on, though he knew them to exist.

They’d found and been greeted by Karen by the time Matt joined them. CJ found him very attractive; that much was clear by the time they’d finished shaking hands. Matt was used to that, and normally it didn’t throw him. But it felt a little disconcerting now, to hear the man’s heart pick up when his boyfriend was standing right there.

It wasn’t something Karen even noticed, he thought. She relayed the latest from Sharon to them as she handed over the phones. As CJ set to work on them, Karen got Tommy talking about Pretzel, and they learned everything from the plans she’d had to major in Geography to the brief obsession she’d had with OneRepublic.

An hour or so later, CJ put down the phones loudly enough to get their attention, and said, “You people are lucky. I found something interesting.”

Karen and Tommy walked over to him; Matt thought they were looking at the phones. Tommy was, because a moment later he said, “They were all in contact with Mal Burrows?”

“Not only that, but we’ve got two people who texted with Mr. Ice.”

“Mr. Ice,” said Karen. “We know a little bit about him.” He’d been briefly mentioned in Sharon’s files. “His real name is Alex Argos, and he’s a likely Hydra operative nobody’s managed to get enough evidence against to do anything about.”

“Yeah, that’s what we’ve heard too,” said CJ. “Unfortunately, as you can see, his text messages are vague enough they’ll never prove it, but when he says here to this guy-”

“Johnny Partridge,” Karen interjected, obviously for Matt’s benefit.

“-that he’ll meet him at 6 AM tomorrow with ‘the birds’? I know that’s code for Burrows.”

“But will he do that now?” Matt asked. “They might change all their plans, since they know we might break into these phones.”

“If they can get back into contact with the two of them,” said Tommy. “That can be tricky for multiple reasons.”

“He also says,” Karen added, “that they’ll meet in ‘the courtyard.’ Is that code too?”

“Yeah,” said CJ. “That’s a specific place by the river. You know, if they’re trying right now to get in contact with Burrows or Ice, I’m actually someone Johnny might ask for help, if I can manage to bump into him this evening. There’s a good chance he’ll be in his usual watering hole. I tag along, maybe even claim I…I’ve got reason to dislike Pretzel, because I can cite ones they’ll believe, and we can probably get this set up. There’s more than one Hydra operative and more than one of his own operatives who’d love to be the ones to deliver the two of you to the Goldsmith.”

“Could we even lure more people in?” Karen. “I know we could encourage the Goldsmith to make a big party of it, won’t it? He’ll bring all his most important people with him, at least as much as is practical. Would it be if this all happened in this ‘courtyard’?”

“Place is big enough, and a lot of people could get there without attracting too much attention, but um, this is sounding like the kind of setup where at least one of you would have to allow yourself to actually get captured,” said Tommy doubtfully. “I mean, Ice would probably insist on only calling the guy in after they’ve got something to present to him.”

“I’ll do it,” said Matt immediately. “They’ll be much worse to you, Karen, you know that.”

“If it comes to that,” was Karen’s response. “Maybe if we stage this right I could even get Pretzel out of there; she’ll have served her purpose if they get you, right?” That was probably a reason for him to let himself get captured right there, though Karen would probably refuse to think that.

Fortunately, the two guys with them both would. “You can take care of yourself,” said Tommy, “right, Mr. Murdock?” He asked it a little challengingly, as if daring him to claim he couldn’t.

That kind of maneuvering was easy for Matt to ignore. “I think I’d be all right,” he said, “so long as you can tell me they wouldn’t try to kill me before the Goldsmith gets there.” With Hydra, that was a very legitimate concern.

“They won’t if they know what’s good for them,” said Karen. “The Hydra people try, the Goldsmith’s people might just kill  _them_.” If she was saying that, it was definitely true.

“So,” said CJ. “I’ll go find Johnny, sound him out. Got a good way to get into contact with you afterwards? Any suggestions for how someone can get some sort of word to Pretzel of what’s going down? I suppose if all else fails I could try whispering it to her while we’re holding her captive…”

“I hope not,” said Tommy, very strongly.

“We’ve got an email address we can give you. Send it encrypted if you can. Right now I don’t think we plan on leaving this church today, but of course there’s always the chance we could be found here.”

“It’s a cold place to sleep,” said CJ.

“We’ll deal with it. We’ve both slept in worse.” At least they’d be out of the elements in here, which was more than could be said for the previous night. Good thing, too, because Matt had read enough in the air to be sure rain was currently imminent.

“Just one thing worries me,” said Karen when the two men had left, and they’d retreated to an out of the way corner of the church. “I didn’t think it smart to say this in front of those guys, but I wish I knew what reason he’s going to give them for turning on Pretzel.”

“It’s all right,” said Matt, quick to realize what she feared. “It won’t be a true one. He’s just going to claim he’s romantically jealous.”

And he quickly explained to her what he had overheard. When she heard about their fears of Matt’s getting upset, she chuckled slightly. “I’m wondering how many people in this world will want to assume whatever bad things about us that they can, even if they don’t believe we’re Hydra or evil or things like that. Or maybe they think that about all Catholics are like that? You wouldn’t believe some of the things about Catholics my parents claimed to be true…”

It came out so easily, and Matt couldn’t detect any signs of tension out of her. Yet she’d never before talked about her youngest years in so casual a way. Maybe being brought close to it had loosened her up, or maybe all the changes to their lives in general lately had made her feel more willing to tell him things she hadn’t before.

He could return the favor right now, he supposed. Outside the confessional, he’d never told anyone that he’d had sexual feelings for men. Karen wouldn’t care or tell anyone; it was perfectly safe. But it felt like an inappropriate time to be making such confessions, when they had so much to worry about. Maybe when the mission was over.

For now, he said, “In any case, I heard him say he liked Pretzel, and his heartbeat was steady when he did. So you don’t have to worry.”

“Good.” It had started raining out while he’d been talking, making him hope the boys caught their bus back quickly. Now it was getting loud enough for Karen to hear too. “I always liked the sound of rain on the church roof,” she commented. “Though I always dreaded then having to go out into it.” But she stopped talking suddenly there, and her heart sped up, having likely run into something she still wasn’t willing to talk about.

Matt just smiled and said, “Good thing we don’t have to then, right? Let’s get further back. The priest will be much less annoyed with us if we stay out of his eyesight, though he still won’t kick us out either way.”

 

####  **That Night**

 

After two nights of getting to bed very late, that evening Matt and Karen were asleep by eight, wrapped up in their blanket in the back of the pews. Matt was sure one of them had meant to set an alarm, but it didn’t happen. Perhaps they were getting too fatigued to go on any more missions.

Instead they woke up, as they had that morning, to find Pretzel very unexpectedly standing over them. The smell of opioids was stronger than had been either time he’d been in her company so far. The scrape of her heels on the church floor had a very faint echo in the too heavy air, and her breathing before she spoke was strange. In Matt’s sleep-addled brain, it took nearly half a minute to convince himself she wasn’t some weird dream or vision (or whatever you called those when they didn’t involving seeing anything; he wouldn’t know) and focus on what she was saying:

“…wrote it all down here and said you could read it out loud to him.” She flapped the paper about as she handed it to Karen. “He says he doesn’t care how suspicious you two showing up so quickly looks.”

“No objection to that.” Karen climbed out of the blanket, leaving behind air that felt much colder. “They’ll probably just assume we’d been tracking them already, although if he really thinks it was too dangerous to email us tonight...”

Matt moved to get to his feet as well, but was only up on his knees when Pretzel said, “I have too many questions to ask you, and is there even anywhere in this church where your boyfriend here couldn’t hear us?”

“You’d have to walk out further than is entirely safe,” said Matt, not even bothering with protesting the label. “Besides, we should go over these instructions together.” He also wanted to know what they consisted of as quickly as possible.

Pretzel dropped to her knees, then tapped the floor with both hands, obvious to make sure he knew she was there. “It’s a pretty simple deal for you. They call me at about ten tomorrow, claiming the Goldsmith wants me to come to the appropriate venue and not tell Vernon. They think I wouldn’t tell him; of course I would normally.” Matt couldn’t tell from her heart whether that was true or not; she probably didn’t even know. “They kidnap me, then send you two video.” Her shudder was loud; that was probably going to be the worst part for her.

“CJ’s going to be with them,” Karen continued. “Though he’ll have to be out of Pretzel’s company, since of course he wouldn’t want his boyfriend to know his involvement in this. That should give him plenty of opportunity to get away from the others and keep in touch with us. When we get near the courtyard, one man will bring Pretzel out the backdoor and make himself look like an easy target, with a bunch more lying in ambush. CJ says he can get one door ‘accidentally’ latched which will delay them by a couple of minutes, enough for us to overpower the guy and for the two of us to escape.”

“Here’s the interesting part,” said Pretzel. “Apparently, according to CJ, it’s not entirely inconsistent with your behavior, Agent Murdock, to stay behind and continue to hit my guard even when I’m away from him and the sensible thing would be for everyone involved to run?”

Matt had to bend his head a little as he said, “No, it’s not, that’s happened.” It was a temptation he’d been fighting from that first mission against the Goldsmith onward, and a battle that every once in a great while he had lost, usually when rescuing a victim who had been young, or egregiously abused. The devil in him getting out, and rational thought fleeing. He’d even been reprimanded for it once. “So that’s what I’m to do there? Lose control and hit the guy until the others get out and overpower me?”

“Basically,” said Karen, and he could hear her angry internal reaction, since this would probably worsen his treatment at his captors’ hands. The boys had been smart to send Pretzel to them to break the news. Either of them she wouldn’t have been nice to. “Meanwhile, according to this, Tommy’s going to spend the morning falling in with Victor Morino-that’s the Hydra agent you overheard in Ashtovka’s apartment making the original suggestion. Once Pretzel is safely away and they have you instead, CJ will call Tommy and invite him to the courtyard, saying he can share in the credit of capturing you.”

“Tommy can let Victor know about this,” Pretzel picked up, “and CJ seems convinced Morino will get mad at his idea being stolen, and come charging with most of the Goldsmith’s remaining Hydra allies with him. Though Tommy’ll have to come with him. Once he arrives, CJ’s priority becomes getting the two of them out of there. If you tell him to do anything to help you hold everyone there until the cavalry comes, he’ll do it, but he expects you to come up with the plans at that point.”

“I’ll drop the gun off for Sharon, obviously,” mused Karen. “I can leave a note with it updating her on the current situation and directing the reinforcements to the courtyard, just in case she can’t get in contact with them. I’ll then head there myself. I can email Sharon and tell her they need to be in Burlington as soon after 5 as possible, but I can lead a few men on a chase through the building to keep them in it for at least half an hour, maybe longer, depending on the building size and maybe state of repair.”

“I can draw you a diagram,” Pretzel offered, and she set to work, saying, “The courtyard is a storage facility the Goldsmith bought out a couple of years ago; most of it isn’t in use. Four floors, takes up about half the block. They’ve got a loading dock in the southwest corner; most of our activities take place pretty near it. The elevators closest to it work; I don’t know if the ones on the far side of the building still do. The rooms there might be in bad shape, I don’t know.”

An actual measurement would’ve been of much more use than “half the block,” but Matt doubt Pretzel had ever thought about how big a building was before. Meanwhile, he put his hand forward and allowed Karen to guide it, taking in what Pretzel had drawn. “If the elevators are offline, I can definitely hold out for an hour. Although, you know, Matt, if I managed to break you out to come with me, we’d likely last even longer.”

“Feel free to do that, then,” Matt grinned. “As long as I stay in running shape.” Although he was pretty sure if he was in worse condition, Karen would probably come in gun blazing, grab him, and run as much as she could do so while dragging him along, abandoning the plan.

Even now, she gripped his wrist, and growled, “You stay in it.”

There was a pause, and then Pretzel said, “I’ve been trying to know what to make of you, Agent Murdock. You make a show of being the perfect man to your girl here, but I wonder about you and your violence. I think we’ve both had experiences of violent men who insist they’re protecting us already, haven’t we, Agent Page? And if you want to point out that you don’t hit her, well, Vernon doesn’t hit me either.”

“Believe me,” Matt said, because Karen’s shocked reaction didn’t sound like it would let her speak immediately, “you’ve thought nothing about me I haven’t dwelt upon myself.” He didn’t even try to keep the neutral tone he’d always kept around her before that moment; he wanted her to hear his doubt.

He thought she did, because her voice softened a little bit as she said, “Keep thinking about it, Agent Murdock. Someone ought to besides us women.” She’d stood up while speaking, and now she turned on her heel and walked out, neither agent making any attempt to stop her.


	12. Seven Hours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Matt let himself get captured.

It was a little past eleven in the morning. Or maybe more than a little; Matt was no longer sure.

One of his ears was still on Karen and Pretzel. They were still at a jog, but were realizing that they’d more or less gotten away. He was sure Karen would keep them in his hearing range as long as possible so he could focus on them, though they had to go outside it to deliver the weapon to Sharon’s drop-off point. At least Pretzel was currently steady on her feet. He’d had precious little chance to gauge her condition during the rescue, but he didn’t think she’d suffered anything that wouldn’t heal, at least physically.

In fact, in the video, they’d more threatened to do things to her than actually done them. Matt thought they’d probably been afraid of Platzer. But even the threats alone had made him so angry, not holding the devil back on her guard had been a sweet relief. He was still a little giddy on the adrenaline of it.

That man was currently being taken out of the building; the man with him was telling him they’d get down the block and then call an ambulance. Matt let himself lose track of them in favor of taking stock of who was still in the building. Only eight people left, including CJ, who had just joined four of them in what sounded like one of the large nearby rooms. It wouldn’t be easy to escape if he tried to, but it wouldn’t be impossible.

(“Please try to escape if it you don’t think you can take it,” Karen had urged him just before they’d left the church. “This mission isn’t worth you sticking that much out.” Her tears had gotten on her hands by the time she’d touched him.)

“Wipe that smirk off your face, you asshole,” growled one of the men dragging him-Ralph, Matt thought his name was. They’d dragged him into the room with CJ and the others. From what Matt could tell, there wasn’t much more in there besides them, a table, three or possibly four chairs, and a large crate at the end. “Please say you idiots saved some of the rope.”

They’d used the rope on Pretzel. Her hands were still tied right now; Karen had only taken long enough to free her feet during the rescue. That was another reason they’d have to stop running soon.

They got Matt tied up quickly, and fairly tightly, around his wrists, ankles, and midriffs. “Do make sure you leave him still able to talk,” said a cool voice that Matt just bet belonged to a Hydra agent, probably Mr. Ice.

“You want information from me?” Matt asked, because their answer there could be significant. “Honestly, I don’t even know much that’s not available on the net already.”

“Oh, of course you would say that,” said Mr. Ice. “But S.H.I.E.L.D.’s files doesn’t have much on what you two are doing now, do they? Things like who else is involved. Or where your pretty whore is? I bet she’s going to be telling you right now. I bet she’s going to find somewhere within your hearing range and starting trying to talk you through this whole thing.”

He’d been hoping none of them would be smart enough to realize that, but, “She won’t tell me where they are. She knows better.” He’d actually forbidden her to, and she’d agreed, unhappy as she’d been about it.

She and Pretzel were now on the far end of his hearing range. He thought she’d realized that, because she said, “All right, I think we’re not being followed. Let me cut you free, and then I think there’s a Starbucks down the block. I’ll buy you a pastry?”

As they started binding Matt to one of the chairs, dragging it out into the middle of the room, he also heard Karen say, “Let me tell you about the time Matt and I ended up spending a day in the company of a Japanese family we thought had been contaminated with a substance that thankfully turned out not to exist.” That was a good subject for her to talk about. She could make it go on for hours without talking about anything that much out of the ordinary, between the antics of three cooped up young children and their mother’s wanting to know everything they could tell her about New York City.

She was just finishing up her initial description of the family members when Ralph gave Matt a smack upside the head, right before Mr. Ice asked him, “Are you scared, Agent Murdock?”

Matt had managed to keep his grin on. “I’ve had worse done to me than you can do, I bet,” he said, with perfect truth. He was pretty sure these guys didn’t even have any implements on hand, which was actually a lucky break, considering some of them were Hydra. He’d been beaten to hell before. He hadn’t always even had Karen to focus on while they did it.

“Remember the Goldsmith is going to want him alive,” said someone else. “And still able to talk.”

“Oh, he’ll be talking.” Mr. Ice was putting on gloves, definitely leather.

When he raised his arm, Matt couldn’t hold back a flinch.

In the Starbucks, Karen had made Pretzel laugh. It was a strange sound, coming from her.

 

####  **Later**

 

It had been at least four hours, maybe five or six. Matt was trying to remember when Karen was supposed to get back there, but it wasn’t coming. All he knew was she was gone now, off to drop off the weapon. He was terrified she’d been captured.

He’d lost at least three teeth, and at least two of his ribs were broken. But so far no one had gone near his legs; he’d be able to run.

Matt was pretty sure Mr. Ice had realized he’d lost his focus, because he was hitting harder. He was struggling to hold on to memories instead. His father guiding him around the house for the first time, identifying the birds outside the window for him. Tracking Jessie in the line during her confirmation. Getting drunk with Fox the night before he’d headed off to the Academy. Karen bursting into his dorm room to tell him she’d passed everything her first semester. Telling a little German girl not to be sorry for him, because even if he couldn’t see, he got to hear very special things.

He was jolted out of that one when Mr. Ice stopped, and sighed, “We may not be able to get anything out of him before Morino gets here.”

“What’s the matter?” laughed Ralph, in a way that made Matt’s stomach honestly twist in dread. He was far worse than Mr. Ice was, because he was outright malicious. “You two fighting over glory?”

“There isn’t much glory at the moment, to be honest.” Mr. Ice’s tone remained calm and untroubled, even as a moment later he dealt Matt another blow, before grabbing his neck and nearly lifting him out of the chair. Matt couldn’t concentrate on anything then besides the struggle to breathe.

But when he let go a moment or so later, he heard a voice, not far outside the warehouse-he should’ve heard it much earlier, but he hadn’t been listening-Tommy nervously babbling, “And I’m still confused about how all this happened, I mean, no one tells me anything. CJ doesn’t, Pretzel doesn’t…”

Matt lost track of him when Ralph yelled, “What are you smiling for now, asshole?!” He strode forward a moment later, and kicked Matt in the shins so hard for a moment he feared the bone would break. But while the pain was daggers stabbing him, it stayed intact.

They all heard the doors to the storehouse standing open, and Morino’s voice boom, “Ice? How far have you gotten without me?”

“Not far at all!” called one guy near the door. “He still hasn’t talked.”

“Will the Goldsmith be very dismayed if we don’t get anything out of him by the time he arrives?” Morino walked fast; he was already coming in. “My friend just received a call from Platzer, hinting he might be on his way. Also, a certain Katrina Castillo might also show up. She believes Murdock might have something she wants.”

Probably that coded piece of paper they’d gotten off Channing Friday night. The code had turned out to be one not far known even within the Goldsmith’s circle; none of their three allies had been able to do anything with it. They’d sent a photo of it to Sharon, but she said only she’d see what she could do with it, and then not mentioned it in any of her emails since. Karen was the one who had it at the moment.

There were multiple adrenaline spikes in the room, and hearts picking up and hammering. Though Ralph said, “He won’t mind at all. If what I’ve heard is true, he’s going to be happy to question this one himself.”

For a moment, Matt found himself desperately hoping for a respite, especially after Ice commented, only a little idle regret tinging his voice, “Then I suppose we should stop for a moment. He’s probably softened up enough.”

But Ralph let out a brutal laugh, and said, “If your lazy Hydra asses aren’t willing to do any more work, that’s just fine.”

“Pointless work,” was Ice’s only retort, and he was walking away.

“’Ice’ is right,” said Ralph. “Cold as it. You really do only care about power, do you? Unlike those of us who care about our friends. It’s not pointless to teach a lesson to those who messed with them.”

His heart beat strong and true. It was a truly terrifying sound.

 

####  **A Short Time After**

 

His legs were still intact. Ralph hit as convenient, with no strategy whatsoever. Matt was now repeating that over and over in his head. His legs were still intact. His legs were still intact. His legs were still intact. His legs were still intact.

So were his facial features, though they were covered by the blood he’d coughed up, a foul smell and taste he knew would linger for days. And now Ralph was looking at them. “Such pretty eyes,” he commented. “Nice ornamentation. I suppose you’d miss that.”

His legs were still intact.

“Remember what I said,” Ice called from where he was sitting talking with Marino. “If you want to take those out, you’d better know a way to do it where there’s no risk of causing him brain damage.”

“You can do it later, maybe,” suggested CJ from where he and Tommy were seated together in a corner. “After he’s talked with the Goldsmith. Give him time to think about it first.”

Ralph was tracing Matt’s eyes, and then he was actually touching them, with the tips of his fingers. Nothing that would make any practical difference to anything, but even all he had already endured that day, it was almost too much to bear.

His legs were still intact.

“What about his ears?” Ralph asked. “Make him deaf as well as blind. Maybe I can figure out a way to do that right now.”

Matt had to flee.

His legs were still intact, but he still wasn’t sure he could anymore, not from the entire building. Not when everything above his waist was on fire, heat and pain and his shoulder in the wrong place all screaming at him through his senses and making it difficult to discern his surrounds as well as he usually would. He could probably fight his way out of this room, if it came down to it, especially if CJ and Tommy pulled their punches as much as they could get away with. But how many people were coming? He should've gone earlier.

Desperately he reached out, forcing himself to push aside everything immediately around him, to try to get some idea of how many people there were in the vicinity. His worst fears were realized when he heard a voice he remembered all too well, surrounded by too many other voices, including Katrina Castillo’s, the motors of their pair of cars accompanying them as they drove up and into the storage facility’s small parking lot.

It was loud enough for the others in the room to hear as well, and Marino said, “Better leave it. Sounds like your boss is here.”

Matt ordered every muscle on his face to stay absolutely still; it was the only way to hide the overwhelming relief as Ralph walked away. Though when it made him aware how scrunched up they’d gotten, he let them slowly relax as the Goldsmith and his entourage came in.

And then, somewhere still too far away, he thought he heard familiar pair of boots, hurrying rapidly in their direction. He had to hope he was right, and that his legs stayed intact just that little bit longer.

When Mrs. Castillo was first to enter the room, she initially said, “Mr. Marino. Did you find any pieces of paper on his person?”

One of the other men looked him over. “You really think he would’ve brought such a thing here if he could help it? I don’t think he has anything on him.”

“Make sure you get out of him where it is, then.” She was addressing her words to the Goldsmith, who had followed her in. “Remember, I’ve made no commitments to you so far.”

She was a fool if she thought Hydra especially would just let her walk away, given all that she had to know about them. But the Goldsmith just said, “I’ll see what I can do,” and walked up to Matt.

His legs were still intact. And now those boots were close enough, and the wind was blowing the right way for the scent to make him certain, the familiar whiff of her hair easing things in his chest. But it would take her at least a few more minutes to even reach the building.

There was something about the Goldsmith’s presence that was overpowering when he got close enough. The only other time he had to Matt, he’d been in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s custody and heavily restrained, but even then he’d felt it. He wasn’t even sure what it was, because it wasn’t a sound or scent or anything that did something specific to the air around him. It was just a general impression Matt got, especially now, when he was standing over him, something metallic and probably sharp held in his hand.

“Did you know,” he asked, “I’ve often wondered what I would say to you first, if I ever got the chance to talk to you? Especially if I managed to get you apart from that bitch you stole from me. Did you know, when I sent my men after you in DC, I instructed them to bring you to me separately. Of course, that was partly to make it harder for you two to escape.”

“You really want to have this conversation in front of all these people?” Matt asked, genuinely stunned.

“Of course,” he said, his voice turning vicious. “I want people to know what happens to those who get their hands on my property without my permission. So tell me,” he grabbed Matt’s head with his free hand and yanked it back, “how is she? Still needing all that lube? Did you know I used to make her scream? Can you do that? I’ve heard at least one claim that you’re not the only man she fucks; do you like to watch? Or, you know, listen? Or whatever it is you do with those superpowered senses of yours? Boast to them, tell them you took the pet of some great evil crime lord? Hoped they wouldn’t think about the fact that I was the one who made her?”

The knife was dangerously near his legs, but they were still intact.

There were things Matt wanted to say to him. Such as that Karen hadn’t needed the lube once she’d put therapy and time between herself and him. That she’d been faking every time she’d screamed, and it was he who had been the first man to make her come, though the first time had belonged purely to her. That he’d only ever met one of her other lovers, and that had been by chance. He thought she’d kept them away from him on purpose, to make herself feel more in control, and he’d been sure to allow her that.

That he’d taken nothing from this man. Karen had left him on her own, albeit with a little help from him, and she would never be anyone’s property again. And in the end, she’d made herself.

But that scent was strong even through the building’s walls, and there was another with it which indicated she wasn’t going to bother going through the door, and his legs were still intact.

So he just smirked, and said the one thing that would hurt more than any of that: “That’s none of your business, sir.”

The explosion was a moment later, knocking everyone in the room off their feet, and Matt away from all of them and nearly into the far wall. Karen fired a warning shot as she charged in. One of the chair’s legs was broken; he needed only to be freed from the other one, and Karen had that done within seconds of reaching him. He was pretty sure he was terrifying sight, especially with blood all over his face and his chest and arms cut and bruised up, but she could see also that his legs had remained intact.

He grabbed her arm, and they ran with him still squatting over, because the chair was still tied to his back and legs. They were out of the room before most of those in it had gotten to their feet, though several gunshots followed them, likely poorly aimed with all the debris in the air.

But these men knew the building better than them, and they needed to stop to get the chair off of Matt. Karen darted on ahead, put her head through a door, then said, “I think we can barricade this one up. I don’t know how far away our backup is, but I know it’s en route. You might even be able to hear them.”

He didn’t get the chance to listen for them immediately. The room had crates in it, heavy ones they could just lift when working together. When the first one was against the door she took a moment to slice through the rest of his bonds, so he could finally stand up as they moved a second into place. “That’s covered the door,” Karen told him. “There’s a third one; maybe put it up against them?”

By the time they’d done that, their pursuers were already on the other side, and pounding on it. The Goldsmith wasn’t doing that dirty work, of course, but he was literally standing right behind them. He’d likely be the first one through. And Matt knew exactly what meant, especially when Karen was standing right in front of the crates, gun still in her hand.

Their efforts were reverberating in the air around them. Matt felt like at any time, one of their blows might knock him over. Between that and the pain he was in, the world was threatening to close up around him.

But Karen was asking, “How long will that hold them? Until the backup arrives? Can you guess?”

She must have seen his face, because she cursed very softly, and then a moment later was carefully placing one of her hands under his. He seized it and gripped tightly as he tried to get a gauge on how hard the air was vibrating, how much impact the crates were taking, how much resistance they were offering. The Goldsmith’s men had grabbed something fairly heavy from one of the rooms to use as a battering ram; he thought it had some metal in it.

“Ten minutes,” he finally said. “Maybe fifteen. I’ll listen for our rescuers.”

He reached out, beyond the walls. The streets around them were clearer now, people hearing the explosion and not wanting to stick around. Someone had probably called the police by now, which was probably going to be another problem, but while he could hear sirens, they sounded like they wouldn’t arrive within the next few minutes.

And then he heard a voice, fairly near, say, “I’ll take the motorcycle and go on ahead. Make a perimeter when you catch up, and then wait for my orders.” But Matt had to truly be going crazy, what with what his brain was telling him about that voice. He briefly wondered if his head had somehow made it up out of desperation.

But he was pretty sure he was not making it up when he heard Ice say, “Wait a minute. It was you who took my gun,” and then Tommy’s terrified, “No, sir, I swear I didn’t!” The gunshot came barely a second later, followed by CJ’s cry. “Don’t, boy,” Ice growled at him. “Your boyfriend was a traitor.”

Matt should’ve known better than to think it was just luck and obscured sight that had kept all those Hydra agents from hitting them. If Ice had been a better marksman than most, Tommy had probably known that and snatched away his gun. Maybe hoped he wouldn't try to figure out what happened to it for long enough.

He hadn't known how to deal with Hydra agents. What on Earth had they just done?

He wasn’t telling Karen what had just happened while the opportunity to shoot the Goldsmith was still pending. He could hear the motorcycle, estimate time of arrival, and more accurately predict when the door would give way. They’d happen in quick succession; either could happen first.

He needed to buy time again, he realized, make it so that neither party fired immediately as soon as the door was open. After relaying to Karen the news about the man on the motorcycle, he said, “Listen, Karen, it’s a big enough party I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d want the Goldsmith alive. At least some of the Hydra agents, too; they don’t strike me as the type that will just kill themselves.”

“I do wonder how he’d hold up under interrogation,” said Karen, maliciously, but Matt would take it for now.

Then there wasn’t much to do but wait, and listen, and try to figure out what to say. He wished he was a lawyer already, instead of somebody just trying to live to see law school. After tonight, he reminded himself, it would all be over. Probably within an hour at most, and then he and Karen walked away into their new lives.

His lesser pains were starting to fade, though too many of them wouldn’t go away that easily. His ability to fight remained limited. The man on the motorcycle had no more reason to talk, and Matt thought more and more that his mind had been playing tricks on him about the voice. Nobody had yet accused CJ of being in cahoots with Tommy or made any suggestions out loud of whom he might have betrayed the group for in the first place. And they wouldn’t bother, because he was striding out the hole Karen had left behind, crying tears that absolutely were not faked.

He still wasn’t there when the door broke into pieces, and the ram started moving the crates aside. But Karen stepped back, where it would be harder for them to shoot her. She wasn’t going to fire immediately.

Outside, still pretty distant, Matt heard another familiar voice, and whispered to Karen, “Where is Pretzel right now? Do you know?”

“In the company of someone bearing Sharon’s letter of introduction,” Karen whispered back.

So there was no more reason to hide her involvement. Matt took a final check of where CJ was, but their friends would almost certainly reach him before their foes did. He yelled, “Mr. Platzer is nearly here. You want to know how we’ve compromised him? I think he might know what’s on her piece of paper. Do you even know that?”

It didn’t take long for the people on the other side to put the pieces together. “That bitch Pretzel Martin!” It was Ralph who yelled it. “Should've known, with Tommy. Hell, maybe Platzer betrayed you too, sir.”

"Tommy?" Karen whispered. Should've known he couldn't have kept that from her, but there was no time to explain.

“It was Platzer's idea,” Matt yelled. “He recruited her, she recruited Tommy; I think it probably stopped there. You really think your minions are going to stay loyal to you, Goldsmith? Only the ones who are too scared are going to do that. They all hate you.”

“Liar!” Matt had gone too far; he leapt over the crates and into the room. Karen fired her gun, but she hadn’t had time to aim properly, and the shot went wide. Noone else followed; it was a hard jump.

“I have more!” he yelled, desperate to buy just another minute; the motorcycle was almost there. “You know Lubov Ashtovka stole your weapons, of course, but she told us she was only getting started. She’s going after your stash in Boston too.” Sharon had told them about the likely stash in Boston; Matt hoped she’d been right, and nothing had happened to it since. “I think she’s doing it tonight; you left some men up in Boston, right?”

“Of course I did,” growled the Goldsmith, indignant. No change in his heartbeat, at least until he added, “And I knew about that.”

Get him to make false boasts; that would finish it. “What are you planning to do to her?” Matt asked. “We wouldn’t care, mind you, except we kind of had plans of our own…”

Next thing Matt knew the man had grabbed him by the side and by the arm, squeezing bruised places until he couldn’t keep back a hard grunt of pain. Normally he could’ve pulled free, but in his current state it was harder. Karen trained her gun on them, and he desperately shook his head.

“You gonna take that bitch away from me, too?” the Goldsmith growled. “You get a kick out of that, don’t you? I should’ve known what kind of man you are, what other kind of man would keep that as long as you have?”

“Please, Matt,” Karen whispered.

At her pain, Matt’s own rage kicked in hard; and a moment later he had the tables turned and the Goldsmith slammed against the wall, growling, hoping he looked a terrifying sight. “You say another word…” he started.

But at that moment the crates gave way completely; and his heart sunk; they’d have to kill now.

Except a moment after that, he heard the motorcycle crash through the open hole in the wall and the familiar sound of an ICER being fired. It distracted the Goldsmith enough it was easy to knock him out. The guy on the motorcycle didn’t take everybody out, but those he didn’t he scattered around.

Then he drove into the room, and Matt couldn’t doubt it any longer. The breathing, the scent, it had to be-

“Phil Coulson!” Karen actually did not sound surprised. “Let us guess, reports of your death were greatly exaggerated.”

“Well, no,” said that familiar voice. “I actually did die. I just didn’t stay dead. It’s a long story.”


	13. At the Playground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt and Karen are brought into the new S.H.I.E.L.D.

It was now safe to go back to the flat they’d rented, and there were multiple people crashed there while Coulson went to work out transportation back to the newly refounded S.H.I.E.L.D.’s secret base. His team had included an agent with medical experience, and Antoine Triplett had done a pretty good job treating Matt, considering his limited ability. He still hurt all over, but he’d been in far worse states than this.

The mission was over. Everyone at the storage facility had been discreetly handed over to the FBI. Still believing he’d been betrayed, and that the Feds had known more than they actually had, the Goldsmith had told them everything about Platzer’s activities, and even fingered Merns. Making charges stick against the Associate Deputy Director might be harder, but he would probably at least have to step down. “Seriously,” Coulson had said to them, “you did more damage to Hydra these past few days than we have in the past few months.”

Charges would stick against Max Obderbrowski, though. Already plenty of his people had expressed their willingness to testify against him. Pretzel might not even have to. At his age, he was likely to die in prison now.

Matt thought he should be contented. They’d done what they’d come here to do, and while Karen had been forced to kill one person, it had been as an act of self-defense, and it wasn’t someone who would haunt her too much.

But the death of Tommy was hanging hard over him. He and Karen should’ve known better, no matter what Coulson said. Lacking instructions from higher-ups for the first time in their lives wasn’t an excuse for how reckless they’d been.

“Karen’s coming,” he murmured to Agent Triplett when he first heard her coming up the stairs. Her step was heavy, and she came alone.

“Think she’ll know when we’re getting out of here?” he asked. “No offense or anything, this is an okay place you’ve got here-I assume that thing in the closet wasn’t yours, but we usually aren’t out in public this long. Coulson starts getting twitchy when we are, and then when we get home Agent May’s also gotten twitchy, and trust me, no one wants that…”

Karen had been crying. Matt was certain of it once she was through the door. Though she was perfectly composed as she walked in and sat down on the other side of the best. “You’ve probably gotten a new IT guy,” she informed them. “CJ wants to join S.H.I.E.L.D., and Coulson’s already agreed to take him back to the Playground.”

“And Pretzel?” Matt asked. He’d already guessed the answer, but there had to be more to it for Karen to be this upset.

Sure enough, she said, “I shouldn’t have tried to speak to her. She made clear how absolutely she wants nothing to do with any of us ever again, and we all had better never try to find out where they place her.”

“Harsh,” commented Isabelle Hartley, another agent who was standing near the door to the bedroom.

“She was right to be,” said Karen, and she shed another tear. “She said we killed him, just as much as we killed Craig MacGregor. She said he was the only person she’d felt safe around for years, even before they left Maine.”

“She’s going through withdrawal too right now,” Matt reminded her. “I’m pretty sure she shot up this morning, before getting herself captured, but by the time we rescued her it didn’t smell like it could’ve been less than at least a couple of hours.”

“Yeah, she was showing the first symptoms even before I handed her over.” This only made her sound more upset.

“Hey, she’ll be all right,” Matt tried. “She’s not all right now, and she won’t be tomorrow, or maybe even next week. But she’ll be all right.”

“I suppose. Though she needs new people. There was this one point where she and CJ were just sort of looking at each other, after they knew they’d made different decisions about where to go, and he just shook his head at her, and said, ‘I don’t have anything to say to you. It’s not even that I don’t want to, I just really don’t have anything.’ She just nodded sadly, and said it was the same for her.

He’s probably going to be furious at us, too,” she continued. “At this point I think he’s still in the shock stage of grieving, maybe overwhelmed by the whole secretly refounded organization taking him into a completely new life thing…”

“We rescued him, too, in a way,” said Matt. “His situation might not have been as bad as Pretzel’s, but he was still working for criminals, and associating with Hydra, and I don’t think that would’ve ended well for him.”

“And we got his boyfriend killed,” was all Karen said to that. “His recruitment into S.H.I.E.L.D. isn’t quite going like mine did.”

“Well, it wouldn’t anyway,” pointed out Agent Hartley. “We aren’t exactly the group you joined, are we?”

“No,” said Matt. “You aren’t.” Karen said nothing then.

They hadn’t needed to talk about what they were going to be doing now yet. This new S.H.I.E.L.D. needed to properly debrief them, get all the intelligence on Hydra they could get from everything they’d been exposed to, so of course they were going back to the base with them. But the more Matt thought about it, the more he wanted it to end there. He had now started the process of applying for law school, culling his list of schools and getting his recommendations, and the anticipation of it, of following the dream he’d had before he’d ever heard of S.H.I.E.L.D., had left him wanting it more than anything else. Certainly more than getting involved with an organization that had now been outlawed.

But while he doubted Karen even knew what she wanted, he feared she wouldn’t even let that matter. It had never been easy for him to walk away from the good fight, but he could do it. To his knowledge, she never had, unless forcibly ordered to. If, like him, she’d had a definite plan for her future, he thought maybe he could’ve persuaded her to do so. But as it was, he doubted he could get her to walk away with him.

Agent Triplett’s comm chirped, and Matt listened to Coulson speak on the other end when he answered it. Out of politeness he kept silent, and let Trip tell the others, “Okay, the boss has found us all a ride. Agent Hartley, you take Agents Idaho and Grovers out immediately, down two blocks, turn right, look for the license plate number EVR-572. The rest of us will leave in about an hour.”

“Will Matt really be ready to move by then?” Karen asked him.

“I got here,” Matt answered, which she would likely ignore.

“If you’re really worried, we can always carry him downstairs. Though I’m afraid we’re going to have to take him off the bed in a moment so we can pack your things up. Coulson’s willing to take everything with him to the Playground, so you won’t have to come back for it.” That did not mean they expected them to stay at the base, Matt reminded himself. They probably figured that when they left, they’d rather go directly back to DC, or to New York.

“Well, there’d still be the lease to deal with, and the rented furniture,” Karen replied, but she was already getting up and heading for the dresser.

There wasn’t all that much to pack, but there was enough for Matt to observe Triplett’s easy strength, when he lifted up their living room lamp, as well as his braille volumes. He could smell sweat on him too.

And he could smell Karen’s reaction. Also hear her breath catch and her heart rate jump up when Triplett grunted. He knew all her signs, whether they responded to him, or to someone else. Always secure of the bond between them, he’d never minded.

Until right this moment, when it was suddenly outlined to him just what could happen were she to stay where this man was when he didn’t, and Matt was suddenly flooded with jealousy. He wanted to kick or scream or hit something, and when Triplett came back in and said, “I’ll help you up,” Matt wanted to snap at him.

He forced himself not to, told himself to breathe, to make sure Karen didn’t see him in this state. He let the man help him up while turning his face away from where she watched. If he had to feel this way, than she absolutely could never know. It would have an effect on her, one he’d long sworn to himself he’d never cause.

 

####  **The Playground, the next day**

 

“We’re going to start with some easy questions and establish a baseline. Can I have your full name?”

“Matthew Michael Murdock,” Matt answered, trying to feel the fancy chair’s reactions as best he could. There were a lot of wires, most of them underneath him, most of them connected to recording devices of various kinds, he thought. The air around him was practically whirring as the chair measured his reactions.

It definitely was not the most comfortable thing to be hooked up in when he was far from recovered from his ordeal. When Billy Koenig had requested he go first, Karen had even protested. But the guy had insisted, and for a good reason. The room they were in had basic soundproofing, but Matt could still hear much of what was going on through half the base. They couldn’t keep him from listening in when it was Karen’s turn. “I want you answering the questions when you first hear them, not an hour later,” Koenig had said.

Before they’d disembarked, Agent Triplett had asked him to apply his senses to Agent Koenig. “He had a brother-killed by that asshole Ward-who looked and sounded exactly like him, and I mean  _exactly_. Like they were robots. There’s something weird about that dude.”

If there was, Matt’s senses didn’t tell him about it. Billy Koenig had all the normal biorhythms. He sounded a bit overweight, blood pressure slightly elevated. His breathing might have been unusually consistent in its timing, but that might have just been Matt’s mind playing tricks on him. He kept up the same chipper tone as he asked about Matt’s eye color, marital history, and immediate family.

He was going to get plenty of measurements off that last one. “I’ve had two sets of parents, effectively. I was born to Jack and Maggie Murdock, in New York City. I don’t remember the latter. My grandmother claimed she tried to kill me as a baby, and then disappeared. I think she must have been mentally ill, but I can’t know for sure. My first dad was killed a few months after my accident.”

“Oh, wow, I’m so sorry,” said Agent Koenig, and he meant it. “But I thought I heard your foster dad…”

“Him too, I’m afraid.” Matt let out a grim smile. “When S.H.I.E.L.D. took me in, they put me with Agent Geoff Connelly and his wife Amanda as foster parents. They never officially adopted me, but I still consider them to be my parents too. I also have six foster siblings: Fox, George, Evelyn, Mariah, Tom, and Jessie. Mariah’s got three kids, and Fox has one on the way.” He smiled, thinking about that. Then, on another thought, he said, “I’m sorry, too, about your brother.”

“Yeah. We’ve all lost people important to us. Some more than others.” There the peppiness dropped; when he paused, Matt could tell he was feeling the grief of it over again. He seemed to put it away, however, when he asked next, “What is the difference between an egg and a rock?”

Matt had a moment to consider what kind of answer he was going to give to that one, before going with the obvious route: “An egg is something laid by animals of certain species out of which their young hatch. A rock is…” He didn’t really have an easy definition for that one. “…a composite of sediments, I think.”

“What have you heard of Project Insight, and when?”

“First I heard of it was when Steve Rogers mentioned it to everyone in the Triskelion. I didn’t even know much more until Karen, my family, and I watched the news the next day. I was on the hit list, by the way. So was my dad.”

“We got a lot of people here who’ve been on that list.” He didn’t sound skeptical at all, just friendly and casual. Still he continued, “Ever had any contact with Alexander Pierce?”

“Kind of. He came into the room when I was working in the Triskelion once, talked to various people there, but not to me. It sounded like it was him just generally going around, seeing and being seen, that sort of thing, though I wasn’t paying that much attention.” He hadn’t even thought anything of it, at the time, that Pierce had never come near him.

It still shocked him, how many Hydra agents had managed to fool him, either had the ability to avoid giving deception away, or just avoided direct lies in his presence. Now, he thought back on every instance of unexplained behavior around him as suspicious.

“You wash up on a deserted island alone. Sitting on the sand is a box. What is in the box?”

Matt hadn’t thought another one of those questions necessary. Again he went with the obvious answer: “A collapsible boat, with accessible GPS.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. was disbanded months ago. The agency remains classified as a terrorist organization. So why are you here?”

Matt briefly considered giving the literal answer yet again, or maybe a longer explanation. But a moment later, he decided the answer was brief and easy: “Karen.”

A pause; Koenig seemed to want more. “She had to come here.” If he wanted any further details there, he could ask her; he probably would anyway. “I wasn’t going to let her go alone.”

Thankfully that satisfied the guy, as he said, “Congratulations, Agent Murdock. I’ve got a lanyard prepared for you here.”

Both men stood up, and Matt heard Agent Koenig take a badge on a cord out of his pocket. “The lanyard itself is made of a pretty fine fiber; not the best you’ve ever had, maybe, but it shouldn’t really scratch. The badge itself is pretty standard; you can tell where the metal strip on it is, right?”

“It’s got quite a smell to it,” Matt told; that alone made it easy for him to take hold of the badge when Koenig held it up. He had a pretty good idea where the strip was even before a quick run of his fingers over both sides of the badge confirmed it.

“I’m afraid the Playground isn’t ADA compliant in general,” said Agent Koenig apologetically. “Built back in the forties, hasn’t had a proper upgrade since the sixties, I think. And we don’t have the resources available to make too many improvements. We’ll see what we can do for you, though.”

Except they wouldn’t have to, if he didn’t stay. Although if Karen did, she’d probably pester them about it anyway. They might even recruit another blind agent, since Matt hadn’t been the only one in S.H.I.E.L.D., but the probability of that remained low.

As he’d said, the cord wasn’t too uncomfortable, though the badge was just heavy enough for him to feel it tug. Karen had already described to him what they looked like, mostly having the logo on them.

She’d been waiting outside with Coulson. “Your turn,” he said to her. To him, he asked, “You want my statement immediately?”

“We’ll get one from the two of you together once she’s done,” said Coulson. “But there’s something else I want to talk to you about first.”

As Koenig hooked Karen into the chair, Coulson led Matt away, and started, “I know you want to go to law school, which would be hard to do if you joined us full time. Especially since everyone stationed at the Playground has had all their public records erased; we’ve got a hacker on staff who does that. But I don’t just need people here. I need them on the outside, too. People who act as S.H.I.E.L.D.’s eyes and ears on the world. In fact, we’ve managed to decode Mrs. Castillo’s piece of paper, and I think we might need someone who’s starting law school at Columbia in January-I happen to be able to pull a few strings with them-and, to make ends meet before then has taken a job as a PA, in a certain law firm.”

He was going to do it. Matt knew that immediately. He didn’t know how he felt about taking that extra under-the-table help when it came to his legal career. But he did know he’d have to make his peace with that. If it helped take down Hydra, or someone equally evil, that might make it easier.

Karen was now doing her interview. When asked to describe her immediately family, she only said, “Noone I’ll have anything to do with anymore if I can help it.” Agent Koenig seemed to take that in stride, going on to his question about eggs and rocks. Her response to that was, “Eggs are good scrambled or hard-boiled?”

Coulson was still talking. “I’m going to give you a few basic details on the assignment, and you can see how you feel about it. I’ve got a laptop in my office that does audio descriptions; I’m afraid the only things in the base that do right now are the newer tech we brought here with us. Karen can come join us there for your statements.”

“We’re nearly there,” he told Matt as Agent Koenig asked Karen why she was there. Matt focused in on her to make sure he heard her response.

It was, “Well, I have to help, don’t I? I’m an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., and of all the things I’ve been, that’s the only thing I’ve liked being. I think I’m going to continue to be it.”

Agent Koenig sounded very happy as he presented Karen with her new lanyard. “You think Murdock will stay with you?” he asked. “With us?”

“I don’t know,” said Karen. In her voice there sat the same grief that now filled Matt’s heart.

He couldn’t pay attention to the rest of their conversation, because they’d entered Coulson’s office. “We had one stroke of luck: Mrs. Castillo’s note was written in one of the Hydra codes we have cracked already. But we think Hydra itself is a little fractured; separate factions working against each other, even some that are nominally answering to the same shadowy powerful figure-because there may be more than one of those. Her writings don’t quite confirm it, but they heavily imply she and Mr. Channing might have been trying to discredit the Goldsmith.

He’d opened his laptop up, and had been fiddling with it, presumably turning the accessibility settings on. “We’ve got half of a plain English version written out on here. Highlights of the second half included the conditions under which they’d try to get the weapons back from Astakhova and the ones under which they’d let her get away with them-but it really looks the priority was having the Goldsmith lose them.”

Then he had the screen reader on and the Word file opened. In it was written:

_Darling,_

_I must give this to our CIA man, but I don’t think he’ll open it; he usually has a sense of honor about these things. I have important news for when this is done. I have gotten a man into the law firm. Ms. Sharpe has promised he will see to it Mr. F’s activities do not interfere with ours. When you next come to New York, you be approached by a man who will introduce himself as Mr. Wesley, and he may ask you questions. Do not attempt to lie to him, but try not to tell him too much._

“And that’s as far as we’ve fully done,” said Coulson when the screen reader had gotten through that. “We’re not quite sure who Mr. F. is; the only thing we really know is he isn’t Hydra. We have, however, identified Ms. Sharpe as a certain Rosalind Sharpe. Her highest-paying client is a man we’re pretty sure is Hydra. We don’t have it one hundred percent confirmed she knows that, but we do know he’s gone to meet with her a hell of a lot.

We know a bit more about Mr. Wesley, James Wesley, as just about everybody he does business with calls him. We’ve connected him to a law firm called Landman and Zack, which recently got two new men working there that both have connections to Ms. Sharpe. The first is the man you’ll be working for. His name is Larry Cranston, and he’s their newest attorney. Thirty five years of age, white with brown hair and eyes, five foot seven, heavy set-I’m sure you’ll hear that. His father and Ms. Sharpe are very old friends, and he himself has worked with her on multiple cases. Typical money-grabbing lawyer, with the case record to prove it. Apparently prides himself on his verbal cleverness. If he is their man, I’m afraid he’s probably the type who avoids telling direct lies while being so.”

That was inconvenient, but if it was a choice between two men, maybe Matt would be able to clear the other one. “And the second?”

“The second you may have to befriend on your own, and be careful about it, because he’s Sharpe’s son. Franklin Nelson. Twenty seven years of age, white with slightly overgrown blonde hair-just enough for you to hear, probably, blue eyes, five foot nine, overweight. Just got out of Columbia himself-he got in as a legacy; his mom went there too, and now he has an internship at the firm. We’re actually not sure how much contact he has with his mother; his parents divorced when he was still a baby. We can’t directly find her hand in his getting the internship, but we can’t find it in Cranston’s hiring, either. Accounts depict him as very friendly and personable, and surprisingly nice.”

That would at least make it relatively easy for Matt to befriend him. He might even be able to do it without “accidentally” bumping into him or spilling coffee on him. “But that can’t be all you want me to do there, can it?” he asked. “I mean, I could easily do that just be paying a visit to the firm, getting an appointment with Cranston, contrive to run into Nelson at some point…”

“True. We also want someone stationed there, positioned to act as well as observed, either on our orders, or, if they judge it the right course of action, on their own. Ideally, you wouldn’t have to, and even if you did, we’d do everything we could to keep the outside world from knowing about your involvement. But if you, or we, knew Hydra was about to do something that only you were in a position to stop…”

“A law firm doesn’t seem a likely location for such a scenario,” Matt felt the need to point out, though he knew as well as any S.H.I.E.L.D. agent that the crazy things they dealt with could happen anywhere.

Karen was now coming up to their office, being led by another female agent whom Matt believed to be a certain Melinda May, whom he’d known by reputation and was glad to be meeting. “It’s taken most of us a week or so to be able to get around this place without getting lost,” she was saying. “I think your friend Murdock might actually have an advantage there, being able to map the base out with his ears; maybe you should have him lead you around for once.”

“Perhaps,” said Karen, and the lack of even a chuckle from her was telling.

Coulson could hear them too, and with a, “And here comes Agent Page right now, I think,” had now gone to the door to peer down the hallway. When Matt stood in place by the desk, he noticed the older man’s movements were a little off, like he’d consumed too much caffeine, or his center of balance was gone slightly awry. He wondered how hard Coulson was driving himself as director, how much finding out the truth about the organization he’d literally died for had taken out of him.

As the two women came in, May said, “Channing’s popped up on Skye’s radar. In one of the richest parts of London.”

“Where he knows it won’t be worth the risk for us to go after him right now. Still a chance the Feds might arrest him on their own?”

“From what Agent 13 said of him and Castillo? More likely they’ll have to let her go, and then they’ll both go to ground together,” said Karen darkly.

“Well,” said Coulson, “we’ll keep monitoring that situation. I doubt we’ve seen the last of him.”


End file.
